


Mountains of Mourning

by SusanaR



Series: Desperate Hours Alternative Universe G version (DH AU G) [35]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Backstory, Elves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emyn Duir, F/M, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Greenwood, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Travel, barrow wights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-08 09:46:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1936251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Climbing a mountain turned out to be the easiest part of a trip to visit the ruins of Legolas' childhood home. To be fair, not even Thranduil had expected the demon-ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Journey

**Author's Note:**

> A/N 1: This story is set in approximately the summer of T.A. 3021. The demon ghosts in this story are barrow-wights, or something similar. I must apologize for coming up with a non-canon river to flow from Emyn Duir towards the south of Greenwood. I needed one, and it's not beyond belief that there would be a small river on the other side of a mountain range. 
> 
> A/N 2: All of Legolas' cousins, and a number of these other elves, are descended from Emma and Kaylee's original elven characters in the Greenwood. Their original characters are wonderfully detailed and brought to life, and I'm grateful that Emma and Kaylee let me use them in my AU. My versions of these characters and their descendants are not what Emma and Kaylee's elves will be like in the Third and Fourth Ages, although I've tried to get the characterizations right.
> 
> Quote: 
> 
> “Green was the silence, wet was the light,  
> the month of June trembled like a butterfly.” - Pablo Neruda

Legolas took a deep breath of clean, rain-scented air as he pulled himself up to another mossy foothold half-way up the highest mountain of Emyn Duir, the Dark Mountains of the Greenwood. It felt good to stretch his body to its limits, pitting himself against this mountain and climbing high above the trees. 

At the top of this mountain stood the ruins of the castle where Legolas had been born, almost five hundred years ago at the end of the Watchful Peace. This would be their fourth day of climbing up the mountain to explore those ruins, and then climbing back down the mountain to camp on one of the lower hills for the night. Sauron's creatures had not made themselves as much at home in Emyn Duir as they had in Dol Guldur, what had once been Amon Lanc. But they had corrupted it. It was safe enough now, during the day, at least for seasoned warriors, but Legolas was not willing to risk it, at night. No matter how much he wanted to finish an initial survey of the site before his father's retinue arrived on their way to the east bight to conclude a treaty with the Woodmen. 

"Passing to your right!" Called a powerful soprano voice from just below Legolas, interrupting his thoughts. 

He turned to watch with stunned surprise as Baeraeriel, his cousin, officer and sometimes-senior officer, climbed past him, found a secure foothold, then smoothly hauled up a rope with Eowyn clinging tightly to the end. 

"Lifting Eowyn bodily up the cliff is cheating, Baeraeriel!" Legolas scolded. To liven up the climb the past two days, they'd make it a bit of a race up to the point where the climb became too dangerous for such a competition, even for nimble elves and the athletic and graceful Faramir and Eowyn. 

Legolas heard a huff of a laugh from Faramir, just below and to the left of him. 

"We didn't set any rules, Las." Faramir pointed out, as his wife unrepentantly grinned down at the both of them from the ledge where they had agreed to stop before attempting the final climb. 

"Ah, well. We won yesterday." Leglas conceded. It had been his suggestion to switch teams today, as Faramir was just a better climber than Eowyn. But Baeraeriel, who viewed Eowyn as a tolerable protege of sorts, had said him nay, and asserted that the ladies could win. And they had. Legolas had to applaud Baeraeriel for that creativity - normally adherence to rules and stubbornness were her strong points. And he had to admire Eowyn, actually, for not being too proud to get pulled up the mountain like a sack of potatoes. She was a good climber, for a human. But Legolas still kept an eye on her, and on Faramir, as they ascended the final crooked, wet length to the top of the cliff. 

Baeraeriel led the way, because she knew this climb better than Legolas, and because she was not Thranduil's heir and it was not worth fighting about. Then Faramir, who was an exceptionally good climber for a human, even better than Aragorn. Legolas followed Faramir, so that he could give Eowyn beneath him a hand should she need one. Baeraeriel's younger brother Televegil followed behind Eowyn, likely chafing not to be in the lead, and not to have been part of their races on the lower part of the mountain. The first day, Televegil had been climbing too fast and too far ahead, despite Baeraeriel's and Theli's yelling up at him not to. Televegil had slipped and been narrowly caught by Faramir, and Baeraeriel had decreed that her brother would climb more slowly, thereafter. Legolas had felt no need to overrule her. 

Theli gamely brought up the rear. Of the elves, he was probably the least skillful climber. But he was also the oldest, and the steadiest. If Eowyn were to slip, or Faramir, Theli made a good last surety. 

Legolas felt as if he had spent most of this season climbing, and was well content to have it be so. Together with Faramir and Eowyn, he had visited Helm's Deep in the early summer, and scaled those cliffs with Gimli and his pick-axe. Legolas fondly recalled the sweat and sun baked rock, and the sound of Gimli's deep laugh. They had taught Eowyn how to climb, then. A good pupil she had proven to be, 'else she would not be with them now, creeping from slick handhold to damp, treacherous foothold on this greener, wetter mountain. 

After that, Legolas had spent the bulk of the summer at his new settlement in Ithilien, continuing the work of healing the forest there with his foster-brother Thalion and the other elves who had joined them, including Baeraeriel as one of his Captains and Televegil as a forester and sometimes-bodyguard. It was good, to be able to heal a forest which still had enough of hope in it to appreciate the healing. Good, also, to be close enough to his sworn-brother the new King of Men that Legolas could visit Aragorn whenever the urge struck. Living close to Faramir and Eowyn, who had invited Legolas and his people to settle in Ithilien, was pleasant as well. 

Legolas had missed his dwarven friend. Except for their one visit to Helm's Deep and Aglarond at the start of the summer, Legolas had not seen Gimli at all over the season. Their comrade was as busy getting his new settlement up and running in Aglarond as Legolas and Faramir were in Ithilien, only possibly more so as Gimli had gotten a later start. Still, Aglarond was closer to Ithilien than it was to Greenwood, and there was every certainty that they would see Gimli again when matters had progressed in Aglarond. He still had projects of his own on-going in Minas Tirith, after all. 

All throughout the spring and summer, Legolas' elves and Faramir's folk had worked closely together, and with Faramir and Eowyn when the King's Steward and the Queen's Lady could spare the time. Faramir, in particular, had been kept busy with preparations for the mid-summer council and his other duties in Minas Tirith. Legolas, with the capable Thalion as his chief advisor and regent, had found himself with more liberty. 

When Legolas learned that his father would be sending an expedition to begin excavating and possibly rebuilding the Greenwood elves' early Third Age and Watchful Peace capitol at Emyn Duir on the way to treat with the Woodsmen of the East Bight, Legolas had swiftly decided to delegate the leadership of Ithilien to Thalion's capable hands. It was very important to Legolas, to return to the site of his earliest memories and see what might be salvaged of the home where he and his family had been happy together, before his mother and siblings had been killed by orcs and spiders. 

Legolas did not want to go back to Emyn Duir alone, or even alone but for his father and whoever might accompany Thranduil from the North Hall. They all had their own burdens to carry, and Legolas found himself deeply desiring the company of someone who could help him carry his own. But Aragorn and Arwen were expecting a child, and rulers of Gondor besides. Gimli was occupied in Aglarond, and Faramir and Eowyn in Ithilien. Elrohir and Elladan were in Imladris, reluctantly trying to take their father's place. And besides, if Legolas were to show up in Emyn Duir with the Elrondion twins, he wasn't entirely sure that his father wouldn't take it into his mind to have one- or both- of them sent right back away. There would be drama and pain enough, without that, although for a perverse few moments Legolas did consider writing to Elrohir. It was probably for the best that they were so far away. 

Thalion was not far away, but Legolas would not want to go with his foster-brother to Emyn Duir. The two of them had made progress, in soothing over old wounds and becoming friends, but going back to Emyn Duir where all of their pain had started was not something which Legolas particularly wanted to do. And there was no need to discuss it, because one of Thalion or Legolas really ought to stay in Ithilien-en-Edhil. Thalion's wife Rian was carrying their first child, which made him the obvious choice even if he wasn't a better administrator than Legolas, and even if Legolas didn't outrank him. 

Before leaving Gondor, Legolas had made a quick detour to Emyn Arnen to notify Faramir of his departure, as a courtesy. Aragorn and Arwen had been visiting their Steward. The King and Queen had, to Legolas' surprise, and that of Faramir and Eowyn, determined that Faramir and Eowyn should join Legolas on his journey to the mountains of Greenwood. 

"I have once again been relying on our dear Prince overmuch." Aragorn had confessed to Legolas, after sending the bemused but willing Faramir and Eowyn off to supervise their own packing and preparations for departure. "Faramir is wearied. The summer council sessions are over, and this is as good a time as any to be without him. He needs a break, and Eowyn could use one as well." 

Together with a small contingent of the White Company, Legolas, Faramir and Eowyn had traveled from Emyn Arnen north and east along the Anduin, stopping to visit Faramir's former garrison at Henneth Annun. Faramir left his White Company guards there, and Legolas elected not to wait for the companions Thalion had intended to send along with him. Faramir and Eowyn were as capable as elven warriors, in their own ways. It was unlikely that they would encounter any threat that could defeat the three of them, moving swiftly on re-mounts from Eowyn's new stables at Emyn Arnen. 

The three of them, six horses, and Eowyn's cat Smaug continued to travel the route along the River Anduin, stopping again to inspect the rebuilding at Cair Andros, to the surprised welcome of the garrison there. Then they went further up the Anduin, past the Nindalf marshes, sometimes called the Wet Wang. They explored the ruins of Emyn Muil and Amon Hen, staying at the latter long enough to raise a small cairn and plant a bed of wildflowers at the site of Boromir's brave last stand. 

At Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings, they tarried long enough to climb up each of the great statutes. Legolas would never forget diving off of Isildur's regal nose into the deep Anduin far below, while Faramir across from him leapt from Anarion's crown. Eowyn had joined him and Faramir in leaping off of Isildur's sword pommel earlier in that day, but had declined to dive from as high as the statues' heads. Eowyn had learned a sense of her own limits, during and after the war. Perhaps more than he and Faramir had, even, but they all three knew that these days were numbered. Faramir and Eowyn would have children soon enough, and would not be able to depart on journeys across Middle Earth, leaping off of great monuments and free-climbing mountains. 

"Well, I see no reason why we can't free-climb mountains." Eowyn had disagreed, when the three of them sat around their camp fire that night, hair drying in the warmth of the warmth of the safe smoke beneath the bright stars. "Or even go thrill-seeking by jumping off of giant statutes, provided that it is just one of us at a time. And we are not in such a hurry to have children, Legolas." 

"Aragorn was." Legolas pointed out, not sure whether he was agreeing or disagreeing.

"As he himself so often likes to remind Eowyn and I," Faramir remarked with an engaging grin, "Aragorn is near three times my age, and over three times Eowyn's." 

"And Arwen would have wanted to have longer, just the two of them." Eowyn said softly, "Except..." her eyes moved to Faramir for a moment, before ending, "They have no heir, and there was - is- pressure on them, to have that surety. Pressure from many quarters." 

Before Legolas could ponder the meaning of that look, Faramir distracted him by vowing, "We will make sure that Aragorn still has time, for the activities he enjoys. He will still be able to hunt and camp with you, and go on adventures."

If anyone was in a position to make that promise and keep it, it was Faramir. The Steward had already been known to send Aragorn out of the city with Legolas and Gimli, or Elladan and Elrohir, on the pretext that the King was no help at anything without the occasional ramble in the countryside. Legolas, who had known Aragorn since the King of Men was a little younger than Eowyn, could easily believe that to be true. 

But still, "He will have a child..." Legolas reminded Faramir, speaking from centuries of experience with human friends and comrades, who, once they became fathers, had little time for an elven companion who was yet unmarried, and who yet had a young man's freedom.

"He will still be Aragorn." Eowyn said, compassionate but not pitying. "He will still thrill to be outside, and to push himself to the limits sparring with you. He will have Arwen, and Faramir and I, and his brothers, and many other companions and friends to help care for his children. And you to entertain them as well, sometimes, so that he might play chess with Gimli or Faramir. And we will watch his son, so that you might have time with him, as well." 

"Aragorn has a good eighty years left to him, Legolas." Faramir chided, "And he is no ordinary man. Things will change, yes, but you are not losing him."

"We will see." Legolas conceded. At his friends' unimpressed looks and Smaug's pausing in her grooming to give him a yellow-eyed glare, Legolas managed a laugh. "Very well, I accept that you make good arguments, the both of you, and I will wait and see, and not mourn the death of an era before its time." 

"Oh, we should drink to the end of an era." Faramir disagreed, pulling out a flask of honey mead, "But not the end of a friendship, or even the end of some of the joys of that friendship." 

They drank, and Legolas was grateful for the balm of Faramir's and Eowyn's companionship. Faramir, who was much like Aragorn but with a more subtle sense of humor, and Eowyn who shone like the sun in the summer light. Indeed, during their trip, Legolas felt as if some of the sharp edges cut into his heart and spirit by the war and centuries of battle were smoothed out. Faramir and Eowyn, like him, had grown up in the throes of a life-or-death struggle. They had been born on an embattled border between the lands controlled by the Enemy and those nominally controlled by their allies. Legolas had only ever had such a commonality with the few elves of his acquaintance who had been born, like him, at the very end of the Watchful Peace. But soon after meeting him, the distance of him being the Prince, or even just the difference of him being a gifted archer and a beginning soldier who could nonetheless identify the long-term strategies being made by their leaders, had left him somewhat isolated, even from those peers. 

Legolas' elflinghood had never been the same after the death of his mother and siblings when he had been a mere twenty one years of age, the equivalent of a seven year old human boy. Few other elves had suffered such a loss at such an age, but Eowyn....Eowyn's father had died fighting orcs when she had been just seven years old. Her mother had died of grief, while Legolas' father Thraduil had endured. But Thranduil had been greatly changed, and saddened, by that experience. 

Faramir's mother had died when he was five, taken by her own frailty. Sauron had had a hand in that death as well, in the suspicious deaths of several talented midwives and healers in Gondor just before the Lady Finduilas gave birth to the Steward's elder brother Boromir, a long ordeal which had left her wounded in body. 

"If Aragorn had returned in time for the birth, he might have been able to spare her pain and harm." Legolas had ventured, one night along the river when they spoke of that loss. 

"Yes, but Thorongil and Denethor were both detained, fighting against a large and unexpectedly aggressive orc incursion in the Lebennin." Faramir said, his voice unreadable. 

"I still cannot believe that you had not realized that Aragorn was Thorongil, 'ere I told you this past spring." Legolas remarked in an attempt to lighten the mood, unable to hide a smile at how ridiculous Faramir's ignorance had been. 

Eowyn winced, and Faramir turned a peculiar shade of pale, before rallying indignantly. "Yes, well, I've had a few other things on my mind, Legolas."

"Oh, not so much, really." Legolas had teased, "Just helping Aragorn to rule a Kingdom, beginning to bring centralized organization back to Arnor, fighting off an invasion by the Easterlings..."

"Establishing a settlement proper at Emyn Arnen, and others throughout old Ithilien, enlarging the White Company, liaising with your folk...." Eowyn continued, toeing her husband with one slender boot, and then tickling him until Faramir laughed too. 

So did the nights pass, in laughter and heart-baring conversations which drew out pain. More, Legolas realized for the first time that a wife could be more than just a friend in castle and keep. Eowyn was that, yes, but she was also Faramir's companion on adventures. She added to their journeys, rather than just kept Faramir at home more often. For the first time, Legolas saw himself as someday taking a wife, if having a wife could be like having a friend to journey with instead of just one to come home to. 

During the days, and sometimes on moon-bright nights, Legolas and his two friends kept following the broad blue ribbon of the Anduin. They traveled through the barren Brown Lands, where the Entwives' nurseries had been burned out by Sauron's forces during the War of the Last Alliance, to make it harder for the Allied Armies to provision themselves as they marched through. The opening stages of that war had been fought over the Brown Lands, ruining them further. It was in that desolate place that Smaug the Cat truly proved her value as a companion on their journey. 

Legolas had been skeptical of the cat's joining them on the trip, when he first saw her being accommodated in a saddle pack of Eowyn's for the journey. 

"I do not believe that this will be a journey fit for a house tabby, Eowyn." Legolas had criticized. 

"Smaug goes where she wills." Faramir had disagreed, saving Eowyn the trouble.

Throughout their trek, Legolas had most often taken on the task of hunting. Faramir almost invariably cooked, and Eowyn would usually see to the horses and help Faramir with the other tasks of setting up camp. That gave them time alone to do the other things that a newly married couple of just a little over a year were wont to do, while Legolas rambled the wilderness around them in search of a few old or unwise animals for their night's dinner. Smaug, equally as disenchanted with the antics of the newly-weds, would often join Legolas in his hunting. At first, he did not like it, for she would spook the animals. Then he realized that Smaug was trying to spook the animals in the right direction, and, though he did not need the aid, he had to appreciate the intention and the effort. 

In the Brown Lands, even Legolas had trouble finding food. The first night, after a disappointing foray, he returned to the camp to find Faramir and Eowyn unaccustomedly somber. They used the dried rations they'd had little need for until that point. The following night, Legolas failed again to find any game large enough to merit an arrow. It was Smaug who showed up at their fire that night with a very slender rabbit, a large mole, and a few gamey mice. Cleaned and properly stewed with vegetables and herbs, they proved far better fare than dried goods, and so they were able to eke out their supplies as they crossed that old, sad battle field. Faramir and Legolas had both gotten by on worse, and Eowyn was a good sport about most any type of hardship. Still, none of them were sorry to leave the Brown Lands. 

Faramir did turn to look back as they rode on. "I would very much like to see this barren place green and growing again someday." 

"Well, that's a project which should keep you out of trouble." Legolas teased. 

"Or in it." Quipped Eowyn. 

Faramir laughed tolerantly at the both of them, before telling Eowyn, "Not in our lifetime, I think, meleth." 

It was entirely true that Faramir had more than one more mortal life's worth of work he'd already taken on. Legolas tried not to dwell on on the thought that he would lose Faramir, Eowyn, and Aragorn all to the Halls of Mandos in little more than a century. Instead, he resolved to mention to the Brown Lands to his father. 

Legolas had begun to doubt that he would be able to tarry on Middle Earth long enough to see all of the Greenwood cleansed, let alone the Brown Lands. The sea called to him already, and had since he first heard the cries of the gulls by the Pelargir. It was not that difficult to ignore the call, while he was with his mortal friends. They had so little time left, and their concerns were set on the here and now. In Ithilien near the Anduin, it was easier to ignore the call. It shouldn't be - for that great river led to the sea. But it was almost as if, knowing that he could choose any day it pleased him to travel down the river and take ship for the West, that very knowledge let Legolas go about his life without worrying about the Call. It was when Legolas was with his father's people in the Wood, hearing their plans for bringing health back to the trees he had loved and mourned for all of his life, that the Call pulled on him the most strongly. His father's plans and the plans of his people stretched out over centuries, for they had centuries. And Legolas was not sure that he could stay on Middle Earth, for that long. Every time someone spoke of a grove which would need cleansing for over two hundred years, he felt as if the sea were whispering in his ear that the time had come for him to sail.

But traveling with Faramir and Eowyn, those thoughts were not overwhelming. At the Field of Celebrant they left the river, to travel to the Greenwood. Which was now called the Wood of Greenleaves, and the Mirkwood no longer, though it was dangerous still to travelers. Had his companions not been a great Captain of Gondor and a shieldmaiden of Rohan, Legolas would have led them on a longer but easier path, further up the Anduin to the old Forest Road. As it was, they left their horses at a settlement maintained by the elves at the gate of the forest, and then traveled over the highway of trees, far above the forest loam. Not as swiftly as had they all been elves, but fast indeed for humans. Legolas did not mind the slower pace as much as he had thought that he might - it gave him a chance to see how the forest was healing, which places were recovering well, and which places would need more assistance from his father and their people. 

They stopped in the south of the Greenwood, at Celeborn's new kingdom of East Lorien, where now Celeborn's adopted son Haldir and Haldir's wife Silwen ruled as regents while Celeborn oversaw the journey of more of his Galadhrim from Lothlorien to East Lorien. Haldir and Silwen's one year old son Laeriant had just learned to dance, and they sang and played and danced there under the stars, in a land which only a year and a half ago would have been infested with spiders and orcs and trying to kill them. 

Haldir was Faramir's - and Eowyn's - first cousin some thirty six times removed, related to them through the marriage of Mithrellas of Lorien to Imrazor, the first Prince of Dol Amroth. Haldir did not think it was safe for the Prince of the Greenwood and the Prince of Ithilien and his Lady to travel through the Wood, just the three of them. It so happened that Haldir's cousin Ecthelion, called Theli, and Legolas' cousins Baeraeriel and Televegil were all in East Lorien. 

Theli, a healer and a Lord of the Greenwood, was on his way back to the Northern Hall after a long visit to Imladris to aid in the birth of Haldir's new nieces, Gailistiel and Galathwinn, to Haldir's younger brother Orophin and Orophin's wife Eilunwen. 

"Lieutenant Drystan, Eilunwen's father, has already nicknamed his little granddaughters Lisi and Gala." Theli explained, after Haldir complained about his brother's propensity to be long-winded even in the naming of his children. 

"Did you and Elladan manage to stop arguing long enough to decide who would catch which babe?" Legolas asked, his amusement at that long-lived rivalry between the two healers overcoming his unmarried male's relative unease with the realm of childbirth. 

Theli grinned and tossed a heel of bread at his Prince. "'Twas no need to argue. I am the more experienced with attending at childbirth, so I supervised. Elladan and I get on well enough as healers, at least until we're out of earshot of a patient." 

"Since you are at loose ends now, cousin, you can keep Legolas, Faramir and Eowyn company on their way to Emyn Duir." Haldir decided, in his abrupt and authoritative way. 

Theli seemed pleased to do so, and Baeraeriel had already decided that she and Televegil would do the same. Baeraeriel and Televegil had stopped in East Lorien en route back to Ithilien-en-Edhil after a visit to their mother Glasseithel and younger sister Alagossiel at the Northern Hall, in celebration of Alagossiel's elevation to the title of Junior Healer. 

"So it seems that Lady Wild has finally settled down then?" Legolas asked. Alagossiel was his closest in age cousin. Alagossiel's last years as a student with the royal tutor Noruichand had overlapped with Legolas' first, and his beautiful cousin had been Legolas' first crush. He'd never spoken of it to anyone, until Faramir and Eowyn on this very trip. Alagossiel had viewed Legolas only as a younger cousin. Alagossiel, Televegil, and Baeraeriel's father, Celuvor, also a healer, had died with Legolas' mother and siblings. In the wake of that tragedy, Baeraeriel had thrown herself even more fiercely into her career as a military officer, Televegil had left his studies as a forester to join the army, and Alagossiel had dedicated herself to dancing, flirting, and causing scandal after scandal with a succession of eligible young ellyn, until Thanduil considered ordering her to go on a dangerous journey to Imladris, where she could be Elrond's problem for a century or so. 

With Theli, Televegil and Baeraeriel to aid in scouting ahead of them, Legolas and his party made even better time than he had expected on their way through the forest, even with a stop at the home of Grimbeorn, son of Beorn, where they stayed a night with the elves' age-old allies the Beornings. They feasted on the Beornings' famous honey-cakes, and spoke and played with his animals under the warm afternoon sun and the bright moon. Eowyn befriended a tawny owl in the Beornings' long house, and it had followed them as they continued on through the Wood, crossed the old Forest Road, and climbed through the lower peaks of Emyn Duir, arriving there well ahead of Legolas' father and his retinue. 

Thranduil's letter had disclosed his plans to stop briefly at Emyn Duir on their way to treat with the Woodmen in the East Bight, and to leave there a force to garrison one of the lower foothills of Emyn Duir. Among other tasks, those elven soldiers would begin to explore the old castle and capitol of Emyn Duir, and see whether some of it might be reclaimed, as it had been during the Watchful Peace. Thranduil himself and a smaller company would travel further south to meet with the Woodmen, and negotiate a new treaty with their leader. 

"I have never heard of him before." Eowyn had asked in East Lorien. "Nor much at all of their people." 

"The Woodmen are fairly secretive, but strong allies of the Beornings and long-time if difficult allies of my father and the Lord and Lady of Lothlorien." Legolas had explained. "They are led by a Chief Gorand, son of Gorand, all the way back to the first Gorand, during the Second Age, when they first started to forest here and make their farms to feed their Woodmen." 

"And to feed our people as well, Legolas, for many of us had become fond of mannish foods and beverages during the War." Theli pointed out fairly. 

Legolas nodded, for that was true enough. "Ada doesn't particularly like them, though that alliance and those foodstuffs have made it easier for our far-flung patrols, and now East Lorien's, to operate so far from the Northern Hall." 

"Your father does not like them." Theli agreed in a tone of fond resignation. "In fact, he has over the centuries found most of the Chiefs Gorand so irritating that a fair amount of Lady Lothgail's role on this trade mission will be to keep our King from making his annoyance and impatience plain to the current Gorand and the Woodmen." Theli had shrugged, and then smiled, "Every six hundred years or so, Thranduil meets a Chief Gorand whom he really likes. Maybe Lothgail and Lord Celeborn will get lucky, and this will be one of those Gorands." 

Legolas had been glad that he would be in Emyn Duir, and having none of the trip to meet Chief Gorand. Keeping his father's irritation with those whom he perceived as fools in check was, in Legolas' opinion, properly a job for Thranduil's older advisors and near-age cousins, the ones who had been alive during the reign of Legolas' grandfather Oropher. In fact, Legolas felt a bit sorry for cousin Lothgail, whose father normally undertook these trips with Thranduil. But he was occupied in Laketown, and Lothgail, despite only having been born at the beginning of the Third Age, could more than hold her own. She was in many ways the opposite of Baeraeriel, inclined to honey instead of vinegar, but she was equally as formidable in her own way. 

From the carefully neutral expression Legolas had observed on Faramir's face when they discussed the Gorands, the Steward was just as happy not to have anything to do with that particular trip. Keeping the peace between the Woodmen, the Elves, and the delegation whom Aragorn and Faramir had sent to the East Bight would be a challenge, and Faramir likely had enough challenges keeping Aragorn and the Lords and powerful men of Gondor and Arnor more or less at peace with one another. 

Legolas had fallen into a trance of sorts as they climbed, thinking of their journey with one part of his mind while the other part found handholds and footholds and looked out for Eowyn and Faramir to make sure that they were safely doing the same. His attention returned to the here and now as Baeraeriel called a halt to find a better way around a loose boulder. Legolas took the opportunity to gaze out over the sun rising above the dark green forest and the clearing mist. A hundred yards to their left, a slender waterfall cascaded from the remains of the castle down several miles to crash tumultuously into the Calenduin, the Green River which flowed from the mountains down to the south of the Wood. The Calenduin was smaller than the Enchanted River on the other side of the Mountains, which linked Emyn Duir to the Forest River and to the Northern Hall. 

This slender but long waterfall had played a role in the castle's downfall. Several of the castles' cisterns had drained into the waterfall, including one located in a room used by the alchemists to concoct potions for the healers and chemical weapons for the army. Legolas' cousin Elladan had later argued, quietly, that the design had been poorly thought out. It had never caused a problem, at least not that Legolas knew of, until the day when he had accidentally dropped a pot of condensed chemicals mimicking the pheromones of the giant spiders into a sink which drained into that cistern. The spider attractant had flowed out of the waterfall and into the Calenduin, luring male spiders from all over the Wood to the river and eventually to Emyn Duir. 

During the rest of the Third Age, elven warriors had used the spider attractant to systematically thin the Wood's population of male spiders. They had even developed a less effective version of the female pheromone, which had enabled them to kill a fair number of breeding females at times and places of their own choosing. 

The castle and the capitol at Emyn Duir would have had to have been abandoned after the Watchful Peace ended, anyway. And Legolas had only been helping Elladan and Elrohir with their chemical weapon research project by stirring mixtures, holding vials and pots, and finding them a small, male spider (Legolas had named it Scuttles). Thalion had not intended to startle Legolas so badly that he dropped the pot into the sink. Dropping a pot into a sink should not, in the ordinary way of things, have led to an invasion of spiders. But it had. 

Legolas' involvement in the incident, and Thalion's, was a closely-held secret. Elrohir and Elladan had accepted all of the responsibility, and Thranduil's court and capitol had moved, swiftly, towards their Northern Hall. Thranduil had never forgotten the incident nor entirely forgiven it. He had forgiven Legolas' part in it, and Thalion's, quite easily. But it had taken several hundred years before Thranduil could see Elrond's twin sons both in his Kingdom at the same time without twitching. 

Baeraeriel whistled, apparently still having trouble with the climb. Theli called that he was coming up, and climbed past Televegil. He paused by Eowyn and Legolas, and helped to tie a rope between them. Then he took over the lead from Baeraeriel. 

"I thought she was the better mountain climber." Gasped Eowyn from just below Legolas' right foot. 

"She is," Legolas agreed, looking down with a grin, "But Baeraeriel only spent a few hundred years here. Theli has lived in Emyn Duir, on and off, for the better part of two thousand years. Climbing this mountain used to be a punishment for the King's soldiers when they erred, and so Theli knows the best routes very well." 

Theli managed to find a safe route around the loose section, and in a matter of minutes they were at the top of the cliff, at the fallen wall which had once encircled the castle. They split up into two groups, Eowyn going with Theli and Televegil to check the availability of fresh water in the area which had once housed the King's horses and hounds, and Legolas leading Faramir and Baeraeriel back towards the dilapidated upper sections of the castle. Legolas would have preferred to have taken Televegil with them, rather than Baeraeriel. Actually, he would have preferred to have taken anyone but Baeraeriel or Theli, who were the most likely to object to any given part of their exploration as too dangerous or unwise without further support. 

But Theli had objected to Legolas' initial proposal of himself, Televegil, and Faramir as one group on the first day of their explorations. Baeraeriel and Televegil did not question Theli's reorganization of their party, although Televegil looked disappointed.

If Faramir and Eowyn had thought it odd that a healer and junior Lord of Greenwood would overrule the Kingdom's Crown Prince, they were too polite to say so. And Legolas, unable to figure out how to adequately explain Theli's role in his life as healer/former elfling-minder/ sometimes-tutor/sometimes-senior officer/sometimes-disgraced subordinate, had declined to explain. 

In their survey, Legolas, Faramir and Baeraeriel had not managed to get so far as the rooms where Legolas and his family had lived. Nor did Legolas think that they would be able to before another week had passed, if those top-most floors were even passable at all. But after a few hours and a brief break for a meal, they did manage to find what was left of the Archives. 

Faramir exclaimed like a child in a sweets shop, and went dashing to and fro picking up scroll cases. Baeraeriel followed him, snapping off orders about making sure that different sections of the room and shelving were safe, and reminding Faramir that they couldn't take with them more than they could carry down the mountain at the end of the day. Faramir then turned his attention to how to better waterproof any remaining scrolls and tablets, while Baeraeriel struggled for patience. 

Legolas grinned fondly at their antics, until he noticed the sunlight through the broken windows glinting off of something on the floor. Bending to pick it up, Legolas felt hot and cold all over as he realized that he was holding a writing tool which had belonged to his next oldest brother Lithidhren. It was a hollow metal tube which came apart at the middle, so that a specially treated wooden vial of ink could be placed within it to flow out of the tip of the pen when forcefully applied to parchment. It was a very useful tool, a gift from a friend of Lithidhren's in Laketown, and Legolas' scholarly brother had prized it. In a daze, Legolas pulled out a tight roll of parchment which Faramir had insisted he carry in his belt-pouch, and pressed the tip of the metal quill to the pale surface. A thin line of black ink emerged, and Legolas felt his heart constrict until it was hard to breathe. 

Time passed, Legolas was unsure how much. The next thing he knew was Faramir's hand clasping his shoulder, and his friend's warm gray eyes regarding him with love and worry. 

"Lithidhren's metal quill." Legolas managed. 

"Ah." Said Faramir, squeezing Legolas' shoulder and putting his other hand under Legolas' elbow to raise him to his feet. 

Legolas placed the quill into his belt-pouch with numb fingers, then stumbled in the direction of what had once been an open glass breezeway to get some air. The hallway was blocked by a tumble of stone, so Legolas kept moving, walking up a narrow stair case to the next floor, and then down another into a courtyard. He heard Faramir call to him, but he didn't pause. He kept walking, to what had once been a fountain filled with fish and frogs. Now it was dry, except for dirt, dead leaves, the skeletons of small animals, and what looked like it might be a human femur. Legolas took a deep, harsh breath and looked up at the sky, arching above the white stone of the ruined walls and the green of the trees and moss which had grown up around them. The sky was blue, spotted with clouds, and it reminded Legolas of the peace that the defeat of Sauron and the last few years had brought them. Reminded him that there was hope, and that things could and would get better. That they could build something out of these ruins, banish the unsettling spirits and strange cold winds which danced amongst them. 

One of those winds blew against Legolas' back, whipping his hair and his braids into his left cheek and pushing him forward a step. The wind echoed eerily against the fallen columns and creeping vines and trees in the courtyard. Legolas felt uneasy enough to reach for his bow, and pull an arrow to the ready. 

A whisper, a shadow of a moan, drew his eyes to a half collapsed doorway leading toward the lower part of the castle. Nothing was there. He whirled back to face the fountain, wondering if the first sound had been a distraction. 

His father stood before him, in a soldier's green and brown, his own blade naked in his hand and his blue eyes blazing. 

"Legolas," Said Thranduil irritably, "What in the name of Orome are you doing here?" 

Legolas did not have a particularly good "short" answer to that question. Fortunately, Faramir's sudden appearance saved him from having to find one. 

"Legolas, I wish you wouldn't go on ahead like...." Faramir stopped, his bow also drawn, upon seeing Thranduil and Legolas. 

"Of course you would be here, too." Thranduil remarked in a resigned tone, as six or seven other elves, mostly the King's guards, also appeared in the ruined court yard. 

Faramir found Legolas' father to be rather unsettling. Thranduil seemed to find Faramir puzzling, so far as Legolas could tell, although he seemed to like Legolas' newest human sworn-brother well enough. Faramir looked as if he was trying to find something to say to defuse the situation, but he, too, was saved the trouble of that, by the return of Baeraeriel, accompanied by Theli, Eowyn, and Televegil. 

Thranduil's sword was back in his sheathe, but his eyes were quite hard as he regarded the six of them. Baeraeriel held her ground, but looked faintly ashamed of herself, Legolas wasn't entirely sure why. Televegil took a half-step behind his sister and Theli. Theli met Thranduil's regard with a sunny smile, one likely adopted in part to irritate the King. Eowyn smiled honestly, and came forward to greet Thranduil. 

Middle Earth's only remaining Elven King sighed, and went to embrace the White Lady. 

"Well-met, Princess." He greeted her, "But you should not be here. Not just you, my son, and these three." 

His last remark was directed mostly at Theli, who remarked, "It's getting near dusk." 

Thranduil glared at him for a moment, and then gave orders for all to withdraw, promising that they would continue their discussion back at his camp. 

"We're camped on the other side of the mountain, by the blue cave near the cedar grove where the spring comes up, leading down to the Calenduin." Legolas objected. 

Thranduil nodded towards two of his guards, who took off in the direction of Legolas' camp. 

"Please bring Smaug, my Lady's cat, if she is still there." Faramir asked. "Although if your camp has cook fires burning, she may already have found it." 

A fleeting smile passed over Thranduil's face at the mention of Smaug. Thranduil and Smaug and her kittens had made fast friends, during the elven-King's visit to Ithilien the previous spring. 

Legolas walked beside his father, as they clambered over the slightly less steep mountainside down toward the Enchanted River. 

Thranduil gave him a side-long glance, then rested an elegant, calloused hand on Legolas' shoulder. "I am glad to see you, you know." He told his youngest son.

"I know." Said Legolas with an almost impish smile, because he did know. His father was very glad to see him, and that was bound to offset any parental disapproval for Legolas' having taken it upon himself to explore the ruins with his small group before Thranduil and his company could arrive.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter became longer than I had expected without getting to much of significance, but I hope that you enjoy it anyway! 
> 
> Quote: 
> 
> Excerpt from "If" - by Rudyard Kipling 
> 
> 'If you can bear to watch the things you gave your life to, broken,  
>  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:....
> 
> If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew  
>  To serve your turn long after they are gone,  
> And so hold on when there is nothing in you  
>  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!” ....
> 
> Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  
>  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!" - Excerpt from "If" - by Rudyard Kipling

"This is not where we had thought to see you again, Legolas. We had thought to find only ghosts in that place." Remarked one of Thranduil's chattier guards. Most of Legolas' father's bodyguards were contemporaries of Thranduil, or even older. Some of them had been with the King of Greenwood since before the War of the Last Alliance, when Thranduil had been only the Crown Prince and a young officer with a promising career in his father's army. These were not elves whose faces betrayed aught of their feelings unless they chose for them to, but Legolas could still tell that they were tense and ill-at-ease. Not merely because of his actions, but probably also because his father had decided to be in the vanguard of their expedition to explore the ruins of his former home.

Despite the unease, one of the youngest of their armed escort, a Lieutenant Orthadvren who had once been one of Legolas' brother Thandrin's friends, gave Legolas a reassuring wink. Orthadvren, once called Orthad the Orc-Slayer, had been a member of a mixed human and elven patrol during the years before the arrival of the great dragon Smaug. Legolas had been one of the most junior members of that unit, Erynion Lightning-Bow he had been called. The mixed group had been Theli's first - and only -command, and Baeraeriel's first stint as an officer. The Men of Laketown still told the stories of the Balrog-Chaser and Bloody Baeraeriel, and of Erynion Lightning-Bow and Orthad the Orc-Slayer. Gimli and his fellow dwarves knew those stories, and Gimli had been almost star-struck upon meeting Baeraeriel (although disappointed that her famous orc-tooth necklace was nothing more than cunningly wrought alabaster beads, a gift from Legolas' older brother Thandrin, made out of alabaster boxes and screens which had been given to Thranduil and Greenwood's Army after the War of the Last Alliance). 

The cooking fires and lamps of the camp gleamed through the gathering evening dusk. Voices floated in the air, far louder than the practiced hush of soldiers, and some of the lilting tones distinctly feminine. It seemed almost surreal to Legolas, although at first he couldn't put his finger on why. The guards and soldiers accompanying them relaxed as they proceeded past the sentry line, where stood a veritable dozen and a half tents and over fifty elves.

"More non-combatants than I think I've ever seen in a camp." Faramir murmured quietly beside Legolas. 

"This is what the Aran's traveling camps were like, before the first Siege." Explained one of the guards.

"Aye, and again during the Peace." Theli explained. 

Thranduil didn't pause on his way towards the largest tent, save to give directions for Legolas and his party to be properly accommodated. As they passed by the other fires, Legolas saw elves whose lives and livelihoods had once been in Emyn Duir. Lord Hithlamor, the only surviving son of Lord Tinnulamoor who had been Oropher's and then Thranduil's vassal-lord in Emyn Duir since the mid-Second Age, stepped up to greet his uncle, the venerable Captain Tundaer. That Captain, and several other officers whom Legolas remembered as having a connection to Emyn Duir, had been amongst the day's expeditionary force. 

Many of the fires and the greatest number of tents hosted carpenters, stone-workers, architects, and other elves adept at the building and shaping of dwellings. There were also foresters and scouts aplenty, and several priests and priestesses. 

"You truly mean to rebuild here." Legolas murmured in surprise. 

Thranduil arched an eyebrow as he strode through the camp, and Legolas saw his father's lips twitch upward fractionally. The answer was obvious, and Thranduil was surprised- and amused- that Legolas was surprised. 

The tents closest to Thranduil's were occupied by elves originally from the south of the Wood, near the East Bight, such as Lord Medlion and Lady Haldis, and by a more surprising company. 

"Lothgail! Brasseniel!" Legolas exclaimed in pleased surprise, as his two female cousins stood to greet him, fond, welcoming smiles on their pretty faces. 

Brasseniel, who was only a little older than Legolas' twin older sister Eryntheliel and middle brother Lithidhren, rushed forward to embrace him. Lothgail approached more decorously, but with an equally warm smile. Lothgail's younger brother and Brasseniel's older sister had died with Legolas' mother and siblings, leaving Lothgail fifth in line for the throne of Greenwood after Legolas and her own uncle and parents. Lothgail served on Thranduil's Council, and assisted her father with overseeing Greenwood's trade and commercial treaties. Several other ellith were in attendance upon Lothgail, including a seamstress whom Legolas recognized as having been one of Thandrin's friends.

Over a tumult of greetings, Legolas made sure that his cousins took Eowyn and Faramir under their wing and would help get them settled. Legolas himself followed his father into his tent with some trepidation, shaking his head as he heard Sergeant Renham lecturing Faramir and Eowyn about not wandering off in the Wood as if they were children rather than seasoned warriors and heroes of the Ring War.

"Renham has always been like that." Thranduil said with some amusement. "I fantasized about a wolf eating him during my first tour of duty with him as my training sergeant." 

Even knowing that he had earned a scolding, Legolas had to smile at the thought of a young version of his father dealing with lectures Thranduil didn't think that he needed. 

Thranduil lifted a brow in amusement. He sobered as he walked up to his traveling desk, and tapped a scroll pensively. Fixing Legolas with a piercing blue-eyed gaze, Thranduil asked, "What in my letter indicated that it would be a good idea for you and a mere handful of friends to embark on your own survey of a city occupied by our Enemies for most of your lifetime?" 

Legolas still didn't have a good answer to that question. Yet an answer of some kind was called for. 

"I did not think the matter through very well." Legolas confessed. 

"Clearly." 

Hiding a wince, Legolas explained, "I had thought that we would arrive after you, at which point the matter would have been moot as the survey would have already been in process." When Thranduil did not speak, Legolas expanded, "We made remarkably good time." 

"Remarkably." Thranduil agreed, slightly mocking, "How fortunate... so that you could make remarkably poor decisions upon your arrival." 

"There were no standing orders, not to go into the ruins at Emyn Duir." Legolas countered cautiously. 

Thranduil slammed his hand down upon the table. "I am not in the habit of making standing orders where common sense ought suffice! Nor am I accustomed to having one of my sons be the reason why I might need to!" Eyeing the anxious Legolas narrowly, Thranduil almost growled, "I think that Faramir may be a bad influence on you both." 

Legolas did not quite stifle a snort of laughter. Faramir had been only nine years old when he and his brother accidentally rescued Thalion, so that incident, at least on the rescuing Thalion side, could in no way be described as Faramir's fault. On the getting one another into danger side, Faramir and Legolas were more or less equal on that score, but Legolas did not think that it would improve his father's temper to point that out. So all he said was, "Faramir and Eowyn had no idea that this might be an unwise idea." 

"Oh, no?" Thranduil mocked dryly, "Does Aragorn encourage his Steward to go day-tripping into Minas Ithil, then?" 

Recognizing that he had adopted a losing position, Legolas decided to abandon it. "We should all, perhaps, have considered the idea more thoroughly." He confessed again, this time with more genuine penitence. "But we did not arrive in the ruins before true morning, or linger past dusk. It felt safe enough, to all of us." And they were a group who should know, better than anyone save Thranduil or Galadriel's students. Legolas and Theli both had a feel for the forest, and Faramir and Eowyn had a sensitivity to evil and dark creatures which had impressed even Lord Elrond. 

Thranduil tapped his fingers on his desk as he considered that. Apparently having come to the same conclusion about the relative safety of the ruins during the daylight hours, he did not contest it. "Still. I am not pleased with this, Legolas." 

Knowing that his father was an elf who viewed future actions as more important than repeated apologies, Legolas promptly pledged, "I will wait for more clear direction, 'ere returning to the castle at Emyn Duir." 

"Or, Belain all help you, Dol Guldur." Thranduil said darkly. 

Legolas paled. "Ada, I would not have gone there." 

Thranduil snorted. "I should hope not, but then I did not expect to find you here." Thranduil returned his attention to the scrolls on his desk, while Legolas waited before him. He knew not to hurry his father. 

Thranduil looked up, his blue gaze still stern but somehow also sympathetic. "I have decided that you will come with me to the East Bight to treat with the Gorand." 

"Adar!" Legolas exclaimed in horrified dismay, having trouble articulating why he didn't want to do that, save that he wanted to stay here, to explore and possibly reclaim their homeland. And that he did not want to go hammer out a new treaty with a strange group of humans whilst playing junior peacekeeper between his father and the Woodmen and the rest of Thranduil's staff, and whoever else would be there. 

"If you are about to argue that you must return to Ithilien-en-Edhil, Legolas, then I advise you to save your breath. You came here from your settlement, leaving Thalion to rule it in your stead, so clearly your presence is not required there at this time. You can come with me to the East Bight. Should something happen to me between now and the complete cleansing of the Wood, you would have to deal with these idiots anyway. And I doubt that healing Ithilien will take much more than a century and a half, so after that you will likely return to the Greenwood and take up more of the duties of being my heir in peace-time. Which," Thranduil said with clear distaste, "Includes treaties and making nice with folk who can't even feel the spirit of a tree." 

"Yes, Adar." Answered Legolas, because he didn't feel that he really had a choice. Being required to go with his father to attend treaty negotiations was, he had to admit, on the surface a fair consequence for having gone into Emyn Duir without waiting for Thranduil to arrive and allow it. However, Thranduil's other reasons for requiring Legolas to come to the East Bight, and the very thought of being away from his mortal friends, shook Legolas to his core. He could almost hear the crash of waves upon the sand, and bright voices singing from the West. Yet Legolas did not know how to tell his father that he would likely not be able to linger long enough to serve more fully as Thranduil's peace-time heir. Legolas had cowardly hoped that Aragorn or Elrond might have told Thranduil that Legolas was suffering from the sea-longing, even though Legolas had asked them both not to. In the shadow of Emyn Duir, in the lee of the very place where Legolas had tragically become Thranduil's only remaining blood heir, he did not feel as if he could disappoint his father. He would just have to stay, and do his best. As Thandrin, Eryntheliel, Lithidhren, and his mother would have wanted. 

"You may explore Emyn Duir more fully upon our return, Legolas." Thranduil assured him, seemingly torn between sympathy and the impression that Legolas was being over-dramatic. "And you may stay after I need to return to northern capital," Thranduil continued indulgently, "provided that you travel back south before winter. And I will see you again in the spring. I would not miss the birth of my first grandchild, after all." 

Legolas managed a small smile at that. Looking up at his father with mischief dancing in his jade green eyes, Legolas commented, "Arwen says that it will be a girl, and that she will have a son. Elrohir is pretending to match-make. Thalion is...." 

Thranduil chuckled, "No small amount overwhelmed, I am sure, and I am also sure that you are not helping matters." Eyeing Legolas with affectionate resignation, Thranduil said, "You look thin, who knows what you have been eating, with all six of you gallivanting around the ruins all day." 

"Rabbit stew, mostly, courtesy of Smaug." Legolas informed him with a grin. 

"Mmm. Smaug, who had the good sense to stay out of Emyn Duir." Thranduil commented mildly. 

Legolas hid a smile. "Smaug does not care for mountain climbing unless there are seagull eggs at the top, or so says Faramir." 

Thranduil snorted, amused and fond, "Radagast meddled enough with those cats, she could tell you herself." 

"I am in her bad graces, having spurned her early attempts to aid us on the trip. I hope to be forgiven, by giving her my share of the honey for porridge." 

Thranduil laughed, "You are lucky I don't give her your share of the maple syrup, you impossible elfling." Walking back over to Legolas, Thranduil embraced him tightly. "I am glad to see you. And I would not have kept you away from Emyn Duir, but all explorations will be done under my supervision, or Captain Tundaer's. Is that understood?"

Legolas tilted his chin in confusion, "Tundaer? Not Lord Hithlamor? He is in command, is he not?" 

"Tundaer." Thranduil repeated firmly. "Or one of the other senior Captains. Hithlamor is too eager and not cautious enough, though he is more than old enough to know better." 

Hithlamor was several centuries Thranduil's senior. "Aye, Ada." Legolas, realizing that he personally had more faith in Tundaer's judgement, or even Renham's, than Hithlamor's. 

"If you are here and I am not, and you judge that Hithlamor is being rash, you may overrule him." Thranduil said after a moment, "Knowing you, and how careful you have been over the centuries about using your authority as my son sparingly, I trust that you will only do so out of a genuine concern for the safety of our elves, and not merely to get your own way." 

"I would never do that!" Legolas countered. 

Thranduil raised a wry eyebrow, "A certain dragon comes to mind...." He drawled. 

"I wasn't just trying to get my own way, then." Legolas argued earnestly, "I thought that we might need to have supplies and elves by Erebor in a hurry, otherwise I would never have rearranged the supply chains and patrol schedules!" 

"Or had other elves do it for you." Thranduil observed levelly, rueful amusement and reluctant admiration both present in his sapphire eyes, "I expected it from Theli and most of your former patrol, and aye, from Sergeant Teliemir and that lot, as they are his friends or Nandorin. I did not expect it from Baeraeriel. Though it did not, after a few decades, make me think worse of her, that she would be prepared to sacrifice her career because she believed in you." Thranduil shook his head, making his gold braids dance as he left those thoughts in the past. "Enough remembrances. You've had your scolding. Let's go have dinner, then, and see if your comrades' cat has been collected." 

Smaug had, and Eowyn's new owl friend had joined them as well. Thranduil and the elf who cared for the expedition's birds were quite taken with the young tawny owl, and spent some time trying to help Eowyn find a name that suited it. Legolas confessed to Faramir and Eowyn that he was bound next for the East Bight. 

"Theli and Baeraeriel can accompany you back to Ithilien." Legolas suggested apologetically. 

"Televegil and I...." Corrected Theli, at the same time that Thranduil ordered that Televegil and several other elven soldiers would escort the humans back to Gondor, while Baeraeriel would join the group bound for the East Bight. Theli dropped his eyes, hiding a grin, while Thranduil gave him a quelling look. Legolas and Faramir, and some of the older elves, exchanged glances of amusement. 

Baeraeriel looked like she'd rather dance with a dragon, but she was not an elf who would ever challenge a royal order. Well, except that one time concerning the actual dragon,and that had been more because Legolas promised not to get Televegil involved if she helped, and a bit as an apology for her not having trusted Theli and Legolas in the past. 

A silent exchange ensued between Faramir and Eowyn, at the end of which the Steward of Gondor said, "There is no need for an escort to return to Gondor. Eowyn and I will accompany you to the East Bight." 

Faramir squeezed his wife's hand, and Eowyn turned to Thranduil with a shy smile, "With your leave, of course, Cousin. Aragorn does not need us to return yet, and my former nurse Edie is journeying with her husband to serve as Gondor's ambassadors to the Woodmen. I would very much like to see her again." 

Thranduil gave all three of Faramir, Eowyn, and Legolas a suspicious look, but he did give his consent. If it was a plot, it was not of Legolas' making, so he did not feel badly about it. He was beginning to suspect that Aragorn might have sent Faramir and Eowyn along with him not just to give them a break from their admittedly exhausting work in Gondor, but also to provide Legolas with supportive companionship. Legolas resented that slightly, but was too grateful to actually complain about it, or even bring it up. 

The evening passed in a merry enough fashion despite Legolas' disappointment over being required to join the trip to the East Bight, at least until he went to pull the Lithidren's metal quill out of his belt pouch to show it to Theli and Brasseniel. It was not there, which put Legolas into almost a panic. 

"I will just go and see if I dropped it along the way." He murmured distractedly, getting to his feet. Faramir, Televegil, and Baeraeriel got up as if to follow him, until Thranduil ordered them all to stay. 

"It will not take long!" Legolas objected. 

"No, Legolas." Thranduil ordered sternly, and then gestured for Legolas to follow him back into his tent when it was clear that his youngest son had no intention of dropping the issue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Note: More about Legolas' time as Erynion Lightning-Bow can be found here: 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/635377
> 
> The story of Thranduil's tour of duty with Sergeant Renham can be found here: 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/628645/chapters/1136535


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Set in the summer of T.A. 3021. The demon ghosts who finally appear in this part of the story are barrow-wights, or something similar.
> 
> "Cold be hand and heart and bone  
> and cold be sleep under stone  
> never more to wake on stony bed  
> never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead  
> In the black wind the stars shall die  
> and still be gold here let them lie  
> till the Dark Lord lifts his hand  
> over dead sea and withered land." - Chant of a Barrow-wight, by J. R. R. Tolkien 
> 
> Excerpt from Previous Chapter:
> 
> The evening passed in a merry enough fashion despite Legolas' disappointment over being required to join the trip to the East Bight, at least until he went to pull the Lithidren's metal quill out of his belt pouch to show it to Theli and Brasseniel. It was not there, which put Legolas into almost a panic. 
> 
> "I will just go and see if I dropped it along the way." He murmured distractedly, getting to his feet. Faramir, Televegil, and Baeraeriel got up as if to follow him, until Thranduil ordered them all to stay. 
> 
> "It will not take long!" Legolas objected. 
> 
> "No, Legolas." Thranduil ordered sternly, and then gestured for Legolas to follow him back into his tent when it was clear that his youngest son had no intention of dropping the issue.

"I will not risk your life over a trinket, Legolas. Never would I do so, and especially not here." Thranduil ordered, clearly near the end of his patience. 

Legolas thought that was rather rich, since he had heard his father derogatively refer to the One Ring itself as a tawdry tinker's trinket. But he understood his father's point. A thing was never worth a life, with perhaps that one exception. Still....

"Lithidhren's pen is NOT a trinket!" He argued. 

"What is this really about, Legolas?" Thranduil asked, concern now warring with his frustration. 

"We have not actually seen anything dangerous at the ruins!" Legolas argued fiercely, surprised himself by how upset he was, "And it would not take long to retrace our steps, at least to the gates!" 

"You are worse than Lithidhren, about not telling me why you’re upset." Thranduil complained. 

"I wouldn't know!" Legolas retorted, his eyes stinging with tears, "I barely remember Lithidhren!" 

Now eyeing Legolas carefully, Thranduil said softly, "I do love you desperately, ion-nin, but I am not a mind reader. If you need something, you need to tell me, Legolas." 

"You never wanted to hear it!" Legolas objected, all sorts of memories coming to the surface and nearly suffocating him with their force and immediacy. 

"When did I ever turn you away?" Thranduil asked, incredulous and hurt. 

"Never." Legolas snapped back, because that wasn't what had happened. But the weight of the memories and his cutting sense of grief at having found something of his brother's and lost it made him continue, "I respect you and I love you too, Ada. But you didn't have to send me away for me to know that it wasn't acceptable for me to be sad. I was the surviving son. You were mourning; Thalion was mourning; everyone was mourning. If I wasn't happy, then you were even more sad. I wanted you to be happy, so I was happy for you. I never had a chance to tell you how I felt, because I could tell that you could not bear more. Elladan said..." 

"Elladan…" Thranduil hissed, seizing upon a point that infuriated Legolas because it WASN'T THE POINT. 

At the same time, Legolas' cousin Televegil bravely- and foolishly- pushed the cloth door aside and came in. "Ah. Spider thing aside, Elladan’s right about that. No one wanted Legolas unhappy. If he was, you were more likely to..." 

"No one asked you." Said Thranduil bluntly. 

"No, but I came to ask...." 

"Leave us." Thranduil commanded the quailing Televegil. 

"Televegil can stay." Legolas said, eyes and heart burning, "I’m leaving." He pushed past Televegil, not even looking at his father. The rest of the camp seemed to have found other things to do, with the exception of Faramir, who go to his feet to follow Legolas. Behind him, Legolas heard his father's footsteps coming out of the tent, heard him inhale to call Legolas back. Legolas' shoulders tightened, his heart pulsing with anger and pain. He didn’t know if he could keep control of his temper, if Thranduil ordered him to come back.

"Let him go, please, Aran-nin. He needs time, and Faramir will be with him." Theli entreated. 

Thranduil's footfalls paused. Legolas sighed in relief. He increased his pace through the undergrowth towards the curve where the nearby spring widened into a substantial creek. A forest fire had left the sky clearly visible from the few remaining tall trees, and it looked like a good place to go and calm down, close enough to the camp not to invite danger but far enough away not to be tempted to yell at his father again. 

Just barely over the rising night breeze, Legolas could hear his father's conversation with Theli. 

"You heard?" Thranduil asked, his voice tense. 

"Half of the camp heard." One of Thranduil's older guards informed him in a tone of mingled reproach and compassion. "Your voice carries when you’re angry." 

Legolas snorted, because that was certainly true. Then he and Faramir were blessedly out of earshot of the camp and his father. Looking down at the clear creek reflecting the brightly shining stars, Legolas paced back and forth in front of the water. Faramir leaned against a tree, and said nothing, which Legolas appreciated. 

"It is dark tonight, but for the stars." Legolas murmured. 

"New moon." Faramir agreed. "If I was a ghost, this is the night I'd be out." 

"Faramir...." 

Faramir sighed. "I will go with you, if you wish." 

Legolas struggled to decide. He desperately wanted to go searching for Lithidhren's metal quill. His father had not, technically, disagreed that it should be safe to do so, up to the gates. And Legolas had not, technically, agreed not to go. However, Legolas had spent centuries cultivating a reputation for working within the rules. It was what had made it possible for his relatively few lapses to be excused. And when he had acted precipitously, it had usually been to prevent imminent harm to someone incapable of protecting themselves. Not to reacquire a belonging of his brother's, no matter how treasured the pen had been, or how much he missed that brother. 

At the same time, Legoals was upset with his father, more so than he realized he had reason to be. Thranduil hadn't been listening, and being here reminded Legolas of trying to be good and quiet and smiling so that his father, in Thranduil's very rare free time, would not worry about him. The fact that they would be leaving so soon for the East Bight coupled with the anguish that the special quill had stayed where Lithidhren had left it, in the archives, for hundreds of years, only to be lost by Lithidhren's careless baby brother in an afternoon, was near overwhelming. Legolas remembered, faintly, that Lithidhren had not let him play with the pen except for directly under his supervision, because he had been afraid that Legolas would lose it. 

 

In the end, Legolas decided to chance it. "Just to the spring closest to the gates. No further; I am not that much a fool." 

"Hmm." Commented Faramir neutrally, but the look in his gray eyes was warm and fond, and Legolas knew that his friend was remembering the time that Faramir had invited Legolas to bear him company while Faramir went off to do a very stupid thing. Getting into a duel with a mind-sick soldier had been, in Legolas' opinion, much more stupid than this, but he was both older and more heart-whole than Faramir. 

"If we get almost killed by ghosts, I will let you slap me." Legolas offered fairly. 

Faramir shook his head, a small smile flickering over his features for just a moment. "Thank you, no." He murmured, "If your father doesn't kill me for going with you instead of, I don't know, sounding the alarm and trying to tackle you to the ground, then he would most certainly kill me for slapping you." 

"Aragorn did not kill me for hitting you." 

"He was too busy projecting confidence in my ability to win the duel, which did actually help." 

"Well, you didn't seem to care whether you lived or died." 

"I cared. I just felt that it was the hands of the Valar, and didn't worry about it." 

Legolas smirked. "Until it was all over, the other fellow just barely injured enough not to continue, and Aragorn trying hard not to kill you himself for scaring him to death." 

Faramir made some sort of bantering reply which Legolas didn't pay too much attention to. His eyes were on Faramir's hands. Using a modified and expanded version of the sign language developed by the rangers, Faramir asked how Legolas planned to get past the cordon of Thranduil's guards now surrounding them. 

Legolas was rather proud that Faramir had noticed the guards. He gave Faramir an approving nod, then laid a gentle hand on top of a twisted old oak. The tree remembered Legolas, and Thranduil, and was happy to keep quiet about where the Prince was going unless the King himself should ask. The oak also helpfully informed Legolas as to the location of a nearby sett of badgers. 

"Let's go swimming." Legolas proposed loudly. 

Faramir winced, and signed that Legolas should not try to mislead anyone because he wasn't any good at it. 

Legolas was good at getting the cooperation of the badgers, however. The creatures were often nocturnal and liked to swim anyway, so they were quite willing to make splashing sounds in exchange for some novel (to a badger) items from Legolas' and Faramir's belt pouches. 

Legolas and Faramir took off over the trees, Legolas having talked Eowyn's owl and some of its fellows into flying about, and the trees into picking up the breeze a bit. 

"I had never thought to be bribing badgers and owls." Faramir commented rather bemusedly. 

"You recruited them, in Ithilien. During the War." 

"Not badgers. I wish I'd had you then; they wanted nothing to do with us, and were generally ill-tempered besides." 

As they climbed and jumped from branch to branch, Faramir and Legolas kept a good look out for Lithdhren's shining pen. Once they were far enough away from the camp and the guards, they descended from the trees to the rubble-strewn path. Walking slowly along, they found arrowheads and coins aplenty and several knives and hair-pins, but not Lithidhren's quill. 

They had not quite made it to the spring outside what had once been the outer walls when Legolas stiffened. The air had grown suddenly chill, and the wind had picked up. A cold wind coming from inside the mountain. At first Legolas hoped that he was seeing things, then Faramir's indrawn breath beside him made him realize that was not the case. 

"Call the warning." Legolas said, pulling his bow and nocking an arrow. 

Faramir's horn was already half to his lips. The Steward remembered the Greenwood's signals, different though they were from Gondor's. Faramir was good, about things like that. The smoke-like substance rising from the ruins stopped, for a moment, as the bright notes of the horn faded into the moonless night. Then it began again. 

"We should fall back, to the cordon, if we can." Legolas whispered, keeping his eyes on the ruins of his elflinghood home as they began their retreat. 

Faramir nodded. They were perhaps halfway back to the sentry line, with aid already on its way, when they heard a scream from the direction of the ruins. 

Legolas paused, his soldier's training warring with his inner knight errant. 

"It's a trap." Faramir pointed out helpfully. 

"Of course it's a trap; that doesn't mean that there isn't someone there who desperately needs our aid." Legolas replied levelly, aware that the terrible scream might just as likely be that of a rabbit or a deer as a woman or elleth. 

"Or a fox." Faramir pointed out, hearing the unspoken thought. 

Another scream echoed off of the tumbled stones of the castle, and then a third and fourth. Legolas had been there, waiting in one of the higher battlements to welcome his mother home, when he'd lost four of the six elves most dear to him in all the world. 

"Even a rabbit deserves better!" Legolas snarled as he turned to race back in the direction of the castle at the top of Emyn Duir. 

One of the many things that Legolas liked about Faramir, was that the former ranger didn't waste time doing things like cursing the impulsiveness of his companions, or bemoaning his fate. He just signaled that they were going forth, and then followed after Legolas as swiftly as he could. Which was quite quickly, for a human. 

But Legolas still arrived at the ruins first, vaulting over what had once been statues welcoming travelers to the elven King's fortress in the middle of the Wood. The cold was all around him now, freezing the blood in his veins and turning his breath white. A light shone at the base of the King's castle, and more screams echoed through the night. Now Legolas was almost positive that he was hearing the death cries of innocent forest creatures, but...nothing good could come of this. It had to be stopped. 

One of the wisps of smoke appeared in front of Legolas, twisting and then howling at him. No longer smoke but now a skeletal figure clad in rags and rattling with bracelets and rings of silver and gold. Its empty eye sockets glowed with a pale, unearthly light. 

Legolas didn't know what it was, but he didn't hesitate to put an arrow through each orb. 

"Come..." The creature howled in a deep, disturbing voice, the arrows not seeming to bother it at all, “Come….”

“Barrow-wights!” Exclaimed Faramir’s fascinated voice from just behind Legolas.

“Not now, Fara!” Legolas scolded him, grabbing his sworn-brother’s shoulder to pull him back, “First, kill…er, destroy them! Then study them!”

“We have to open their barrows to the sun!” Faramir explained, between ineffective blows with his sword to the torsos and skeletal arms of the now swarming wights.

“It’s midnight!” Legolas objected.

“A problem, yes.” Faramir agreed, managing to do a far better job of fighting here in this forsaken place than he ever did in practice. A tendency of Faramir’s that drove Aragorn, Glorfindel, Legolas and everyone else who had taken upon the task of further training Boromir’s younger brother absolutely mad.

“Legolas.” Shouted Faramir, nodding towards a precariously balanced wall, and a cloud of barrow-wights coalescing just beneath it.

Legolas nodded, kicked his current wight-opponent off of the mountain. He joined Faramir at the wall. As one, they rammed into the weakened structure. Crumbling mortar dusted their hair and shoulders with a fine layer of white particles, causing Faramir to sneeze as the wall collapsed on top of the wights.

“Well, that at least seemed to stop them.” Faramir noted, peering with interest at the writhing skeletons beneath the fallen masonry.

“A dozen down, several hundred left to go. Move, Faramir!” Legolas complained, pulling his scholarly friend along behind him.

Throwing the wights off of the mountain didn’t seem to stop them for long. Legolas’ arrows were good for severing withered ropes and clinging vines to cause more heavy objects to land on the wights, temporarily holding them, but not for much else. Faramir’s sword was no better than a club. They were vastly outnumbered, and being herded towards the central court yard of the castle.

“This is going to be a very stupid way to die.” Faramir pointed out, in the same tone of voice he used to inform Aragorn that the King oughtn’t word a specific petition a certain way.

Legolas didn’t deign to reply. Faramir would be right, save that the elven Prince was determined that they would not die, not this night. His father would never forgive him if that were to happen. Not anywhere, and perhaps most especially not here.

Realizing that he was out of arrows did nothing to dim that resolution. Legolas pulled his knives, stabbing one of the wights between the joints of the rusty armor it wore. He hadn’t expected much- the demon ghosts did not seem to particularly mind being stabbed- but to his surprise the wight howled in pain, clutching at its side and retreating, thus blocking the onslaught of several of its fellows.

Faramir exclaimed in interest, and then pulled a dagger of his own. Tossing it unerringly through the eye of a barrow-wight, the human prince grinned in triumph as the creature wheeled aside, drawing its tattered, befouled cloak over the wounded eye.

“Blessed weapons can harm them!” Faramir explained, as calm as if he’d just discovered an interesting fact in the library.

“Then why doesn’t your sword?” Legolas demanded, dodging around another wight and wishing that Faramir had not thrown away a useful weapon just to test a theory. His newest human brother was normally tediously insistent upon weapons being blessed; that this one apparently hadn’t been when it finally mattered again was something Legolas would never fail to bring up in the future, should they live to see the morning.

“Glorfindel knocked the cross-piece on my sword a-kilter, ‘ere we left Minas Tirith.” Faramir gasped, “This was one of Boromir’s. A gift from our fath…” Faramir broke off as they were hard-pressed again.

Legolas launched himself at the nearest wights, trying to inflict as much pain as possible without being grabbed and held. Their bony fingers cut like wires made out of the coldest of ice, and Legolas didn’t like the drugged lassitude which came over him when they seized him and looked into his eyes.

Another piteous, terrified scream rang out from the central courtyard. The wights lost interest in the two princes for a moment, either having realized that Legolas, at least, could cause them real pain, or intrigued by the sound.

“I don’t want to know what their idea of a good time is.” Legolas murmured, torn between horror and gratitude as he used the respite to pull them both into a half-blocked corridor leading out to the other side of the mountain.

“Neither do I.” Faramir whispered in fervent agreement. Then he stifled a laugh.

“What?”

“It will be ironic if, after all that has happened, it will be my Lord…Lord Denethor’s insistence that magic and the Valar cannot protect us from danger, leading to his stubborn refusal to bless any weapon he gave as a gift, which will end up getting me killed.”

“Have a little faith.” Legolas lectured, not sure whether to appreciate that Faramir could see some humor in this, however dark, or discourage it. “I am good at finding danger, yes, but I am good at getting us out of it, too. Did not my plan save us in Mordor during our scenic tour there last winter?” He jested, pulling Faramir down to rest on a stone bench beside him. 

“That was my plan.” Faramir replied, hiding a smile.

“Ah, yes, but it was I who killed the orcs.”

“That was Grace.”

“So it was.” Legolas agreed, squeezing his sworn-brother’s wrist reassuringly. “But it is me who has spent centuries in this wood, and decades in this castle. I have fought the dead before, with Aragorn and Gimli during the war. I have more experience, Faramir, and I have faith. Do you not give up, either.”

Faramir nodded to him, quietly determined. Legolas nodded back.

Getting to his feet, Legolas eyed the bench they had been sitting on. It was smallish, as a bench in the castle went. Legolas knew this corridor well. Lithidhren and Thandrin had used it, to sneak food from the kitchen at odd hours. He did not recognize this bench, which looked almost more like a flat-topped chest. The sides were engraved with symbols. The first, a shield with an evergreen upon it, surmounted by a circlet, had been his older brother Thandrin’s coat of arms. The twins, Lithidhren and Eryntheliel, had not yet chosen an official symbol. But a wood-hawk flew up beside the shield, and a lamp, the symbol of Greenwood’s archivist, lit its way.

“Faramir, help me open this.”

Confused but willing, Faramir bent to lift up one end of the top of the bench, while Legolas grabbed the other. His hands tingled, but warmly. Nothing at all like the feeling the barrow-wights gave him. On three, he and Faramir lifted the heavy stone lid, which was not quite as weighty as it should have been. 

Inside the bench – which was, in fact, a chest – lay two swords, a bow, and a quiver of arrows. The heavier sword had been Thandrin’s. Legolas picked it up, handing the slender, longer blade which had once been Lithidhren’s to Faramir.

Legolas took the arrows, and Faramir the bow. They had been Eryntheliel’s, and she had not liked to use them for aught but target practice. The arrows were too short for Legolas’ bow, but they were blessed, and practically shone with it. His sister’s bow was too small for Faramir, but without speaking, neither prince was willing to leave anything of Legolas’ siblings here in this place.

“I will never leave a camp without my bow again.” Faramir vowed. 

“Best not.” Legolas agreed, glad that they’d both had a chance to catch their breath as another gust of bitterly cold air blasted by them, followed by the moaning, hypnotic howl of a wight.

The two princes resumed their running battle, this time better armed. They still ended up in the courtyard, which ran with the blood of a dozen deer and twice as many smaller creatures, rabbits and foxes amongst them.

Blood ringed the mouths and stained the skeletal teeth of the barrow-wights surrounding the slaughter. They were stronger, and faster, than the other wights. Legolas would have been afraid, had he the time to think of such an abstract concept as fear. 

A horn called out, the notes deep and fierce. The barrow-wights didn’t pause, but Legolas applied himself to the battle with renewed fervor, as did Faramir beside him. Help was on the way; and although Legolas almost wished that they’d been left to their fate rather than endanger their fellows, he was deeply grateful for the impending aid.

He saw Thranduil first, fierce and savage, a whirlwind of death with his long blade. Behind him followed the King’s Guards, too accustomed to their royal charge leading from the front to even appear exasperated, at least in the midst of battle. Legolas spotted Baeraeriel leaping from Theli’s shoulders with both her blades drawn, and Sergeant Renham wielding a stone statute of a lion like a giant club with Eowyn in his wake.

*Blessed weapons hurt them.* Legolas thought to his father, as strongly as he could. He did not have the age, experience or natural skill for speaking clearly mind to mind, but his bond with his father was such that he didn’t really need it. Across the courtyard, hundreds of angry demon ghosts between them, he felt more than saw his father nod. Thranduil called orders, and the elven warriors reorganized themselves accordingly. Eowyn fell into their formation smoothly, and Legolas marveled again at what a natural warrior the human woman was, for all her relative dearth of experience.

For awhile, they made progress. Then more barrow-wights rose like smoke through the fountains of the courtyard and the corridors leading down to the lower levels. Legolas’ muscles were tired, and Faramir’s must be even more so. If they could not reach his father and the other warriors soon, Legolas would not be sanguine about their chances.

Thranduil must have come to the same conclusion. He shouted an order, and his guards formed up around him, making a circle to protect the King. Thranduil knelt down, laid his hand on the keystone of the courtyard, and spoke.

Legolas felt the words vibrate through the air. This castle was haunted, yes, but Thranduil had helped to build it with his own hands. Twice. He had ruled this land and fought to save it for over fourth thousand years.

The barrow-wights shrieked, and for a moment Legolas thought that all would be well. Then the very stones of the courtyard cracked, right down the middle. A crevice suddenly gaped into existence beneath their feet, like the maw of a gigantic stone monster. One with penetrating, icy breath. Barrow wights swarmed out of the depths, their pale, glowing eyes fixed upon the living.

Legolas and Faramir ended up on one side of the gaping chasm. Thranduil and his warriors – and Eowyn- were on the other.

“Call to father to sound the retreat!” Legolas ordered Faramir above the ghastly noise. There were too many of the enemy, and they were too strong. Already Captain Tundaer was carrying Lieutenant Orthadvren, who must have gotten too close to one of the wights. Legolas and Faramir had a chance to get away over the other side of the castle. Not a good one, but Legolas and Faramir were both hero enough, and prince enough, that they would not risk the lives of others, not when there was such slim hope of rescue succeeding.

Faramir had lost the horn, but Legolas’ father wasn’t a fool, either. When the two princes managed to get to higher ground, they could clearly see the other elves formed up and retreating in the direction of the exit nearest their campsite, Eowyn in their midst beside the shorter figure of Baeraeriel.

Legolas counted them, and was greatly relieved to see that none had been lost, at the same time he couldn’t help feeling a little abandoned.

“Grace and I did the heavy lifting in Mordor, eh?” Faramir wheezed from beside him, with a wry, reckless grin, “Think that you can manage your turn here, my pointy-eared friend?”

Despite their dire straits, Legolas couldn’t help but laugh. If one was going to have to fight an army of demon-ghosts in the ruins of one’s childhood home which the foul creatures had corrupted and made their own, then one couldn’t have a better friend by one’s side to do it with than Faramir. Unless, of course, it was a dozen such friends, but that would be greedy, Legolas supposed.

He turned one more time to make sure that his father’s elves made it out of the outer courtyard safely, but even as he did so he was already urging Faramir up the stairs. The sight of Captain Tundaer taking over point for the retreat stopped Legolas in his tracks, and then his heart froze as he watched his father break free from his body guards and leap the chasm at its narrowest point.

“Oh, orc spit!” Legolas cursed, jumping back down into the courtyard to go to his father’s aid. Faramir followed him without Legolas’ even having to ask.

Baeraeriel had followed Thranduil, throwing herself over the crevice with a boost from Theli, and strategically crashing into three wights. Theli leapt, too, but needed a catch from Faramir to keep from falling into the pit of wights. Then Eowyn followed, and Thranduil, given some breathing room by Legolas, nearly fell back into the hole himself aiding Eowyn. 

The six of them battled their way to the entrance of a hallway which had windows open to the sunlight during the day, Legolas thrilling despite the circumstances to be fighting beside his father. He and Thranduil had often sparred together, but it was rare that the King and the King’s sole surviving blood heir had been part of the same patrol. They’d fought side-by-side only perhaps a dozen times since Legolas first joined the army, the most recent having been at the Battle of the Five Armies. It was invigorating to do so again.

That hallway was relatively free of wights, but the next was not.

“This way!” Theli called, gesturing them towards a stairway which led down to the cellars.

“Are you insane?” Thranduil demanded.

“Trust me!”

Thranduil made a noise closer to a growl than an acquiescence, but he gestured to Legolas, Faramir, and Eowyn to follow, nonetheless. A brief argument ensued, which Baeraeriel evidently lost, for it was Thranduil who brought up the rear. As they went further into the damp, chillingly cold cellars, Legolas devoutly hoped that Theli did, in fact, know what he was doing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth."   
> ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

The air grew coldly sinister and chillingly damp as they fought their way deeper into the subterranean levels of the castle at Emyn Duir. Legolas was soon too focused on the enemies they faced to worry about where Theli was leading them. The elven prince swung and stabbed at the screaming wights with his older brother Thandrin’s blessed sword, Eowyn before him and Baeraeriel behind him doing the same. Theli had point, with Faramir cleaning up the wights who were stirred up in the wake of the healer elf. Thranduil defended them from the back, with occasional assistance from Baeraeriel and Legolas. 

The howling moans of the wights echoed off of the increasingly close set walls. Sickly shimmering, the wights seemed to emerge from every shadow. With the blessed weapons, Legolas and his company held their own. 

Then the number of wights between them and wherever Theli was leading them thickened, and Legolas moved forward to help clear the path. He fought just to Faramir’s right, surprised again and grateful for his human friend’s endurance. Faramir was not the great swordsman that Boromir had been, nor was he Aragorn’s equal with a blade. But being exhausted did not take a great toll on Faramir’s skill. As the scholarly warrior grew more tired, he also became more focused. It was almost like fighting beside Aragorn again, at times.

Aragorn and Faramir were both human, but if they really wanted to, they could communicate a thought or concept to Legolas during a fight merely by making eye contact. Faramir was even able to do so without meeting Legolas’ eyes, which had taken even Lord Elrond quite by surprise the first time it happened.

Their path forward cleared. Legolas turned back, and joined his father and Baeraeriel in discouraging the wights who followed at their heels, shrieking and grasping with their skeletal hands and beckoning with their glowing eyes. Thranduil moved aside to make room for Legolas, sending a high-spirited but silent message of welcome and pride through the link that he and Legolas shared as father-and-son. Through that bond, Legolas was able to know how his father was going to move even as Thranduil made the decision.

That was particularly helpful, as Legolas was not accustomed to fighting with a long blade such as Thandrin’s. He normally preferred the two slender, deadly long knives favored by Baeraeriel. It was an aggressive fighting style which could be deadly in the hands of fast, flexible, and well-trained warriors such as Legolas and Baeraeriel. It did, however, have a very real flaw which Thranduil had often complained about. Should an elf fighting with two short blades mist-time a strike, he had no easy way to defend himself long enough to retreat. An elf fighting with a long sword like Thranduil’s could swing the blade in an arc to protect himself, both to get an opponent to step back and to defend himself from an incoming blow. A warrior who only had long knives had better be able to get out of the way without any such assistance, or not miss in the first place.

Thranduil had never liked that Legolas had taken up the knives, but he had seen to it that his son had the best teachers, one of whom had been Baeraeriel. And the lighter knives allowed Legolas to match larger, more heavily-built elves and men toe-to-toe throughout even a long engagement, which would have been more difficult, with a heavier blade. Even now, Legolas’ arms and shoulders were aching from his older brother’s heavy, unfamiliar sword. The elven prince could now understand why Faramir had taken to running several miles a day in plate armor as a teenager, in order to try to equal the stamina and strength of his larger, bulkier comrades in arms such as his brother Boromir.

Yet Faramir and even Legolas were tall and muscular compared to Eowyn’s slender femininity. Baeraeriel was only two thirds Eowyn's height, and dainty. Legolas felt his father’s shared wonder at the whirlwind of deadly force that was their short female cousin, as she stabbed and tripped barrow-wights under Thranduil’s longer sword to the King's left while Legolas did the same to the right. Thranduil’s mind must have turned from battle to memory, as Legolas saw for a moment a younger Baeraeriel with fewer beads in her warrior braids fewer orc tooth beads on her necklace, clearing opponents low and to the left for Thandrin instead of Thranduil.

That moment quickly passed. Ahead of them, Theli, Faramir and Eowyn stopped moving, and formed a semi circle around what looked like a round stone door in the floor. 

"Key?" Shouted Theli, over the sound of the barrow-wights' shrieking. 

Thranduil swore virulently, but to Legolas' relief, he did pull a shining, intricate key from around his neck. Legolas and Baeraeriel joined the circle of protection around the door, and Thranduil opened it. 

"They do go through walls, you know!" Thranduil said scathingly. 

"I noticed." Theli replied breathlessly, "But it takes time. And I don't think they like running water. They weren't crossing the streams." 

"Many of the Enemy's creations are frightened and weak when it comes to flowing water." Faramir noted, grey eyes lighting up with interest even as he stabbed Lithidhren's sword through a wight's rib cage and twisted up, making the wight scream. 

"The main cisterns were the other way." Thranduil pointed out urgently, waving Theli and then Eowyn down before him into the tunnel. 

"The cisterns may have broken when the spring beneath the great hall did. The spring in the west courtyard is dried up, and the small cisterns in the other direction were empty, when we were there yesterday." Theli explained. 

Legolas went after Eowyn, because Thranduil told him to, and it didn't seem like a good time to argue (for a number of reasons). 

The walls didn't slow the barrow-wights down for very long, and they had apparently settled into the tunnels, infecting them and befouling them like fungi and mold had so many of the trees. Between the wights following them from above, and the apparently weaker ones they disturbed in their flight through the subterranean tunnels, their group was hard pressed. On all sides, they were surrounded by gaping, skeletal maws and screaming, glowing eyes. Legolas lost count of the number of times he had to tear a vise-like bony grip off of his limbs. At one point, Baeraeriel was nearly dragged bodily away. 

"I will take your teeth for my necklace, you misbegotten bag of bones!" She yelled, jumping on top of the wight's shoulders. She pulled her knives back and then jammed them down between the top of the wight's ribs and the vertebrae at the base of its neck. The creature's head flew off, which at the least seemed to confuse its body. Its head tried to bite Eowyn, who took the situation with remarkable aplomb. The Rohirric shield-maiden lifted the head by its straggling hair, and threw it over her head at another wight which was menacing Thranduil and Faramir. It knocked the creature back enough that Faramir could tip it over while Thranduil turned his attention to another. 

They soon reached a very small tunnel, one which only Baeraeriel could stand easily pass through without stooping. The roar of water greeted them, and only a few wights followed. Water flowed over their boots and dripped down from the ceiling. The air smelled slightly dank, but more of a healthy earthy smell, like a wet forest cave. Dark green moss grew over the stones, not poisonous, just...slippery. It was not a site where Legolas would choose to spend time, but it was not befouled, either. 

"What is this place?" Legolas wondered aloud? 

"The drainage channel for the spring from the large bathing pools." Thranduil was almost laughing, "And from the...uh...." He trailed off with an uncertain look at Baeraeriel and Eowyn. 

"The sewers." Theli supplied with a devilish grin. "I had to scrub this place with a toothbrush once or twice, so I remember it fairly well." 

Thranduil clapped the healer on the shoulder. "Well-done. I know the way from here." 

Legolas' father took the lead, and Theli dropped back to bring up the rear. Thranduil led them unerringly through a series of smaller and then larger tunnels, the rushing sound of water growing louder all the while. The barrow-wights did not seem to like the sound. They hadn't entirely given up the chase - Legolas rather got the feeling that getting to attack the elves and humans was the most excitement the barrow-wights had had in a long time. 

At the last, they reached a circular chamber. The water flowed into the top and then out a hole at the bottom, cascading hundreds of yards down the mountain to crash into what looked like a small maze made out of rocks, which it seemed might have once been a mechanism designed to redirect the flow of the stream into one of a number of different directions. 

A small, slippery stone ladder led down into the circular chamber from the tunnel above. All around the edge of the chamber, just far enough down that a tall elf could stand, ran a narrow ledge, slightly wider at three different points. 

The howling of the barrow-wights above them grew louder. Their ghostly enemies seemed quite put-out. That anger gave the the wights the strength to make darting strikes toward the fleeing elves and men, even though the sound and feel of the water seemed to cause them physical pain. 

Theli came to fore again, and went first down the treacherous ladder. At one point, he slipped and almost fell into the streaming water. 

"Clumsy elfling!" Thranduil scolded. 

Theli called back a cheerful reply as he made it safely to the ledge. He proceeded to edge around the ledge, hands careful on the slick walls, around to a ladder on the far side, next to the wider platform directly opposite the entrance. Then he dropped down, reaching for the rungs of another ladder, this one seemingly made of metal. Legolas could vaguely remember the ladder. It had led precariously down from the least scenic view of the castle towards the mountain path meeting the river Calenduin. 

Theli cursed quietly. To Legolas, it sounded like he'd said, "oh, orcs fornicating with their progenitors," which was an interesting combination of filthy ideas which Legolas hadn't heard put quite that way before. 

"Aran-nin!" Theli called, more formal than he often was with Thranduil when there wasn't an audience to be proper for, "The cursed ladder is gone!" 

Thranduil swore to, another curse that Legolas had never heard before. He made a mental note to share it with Aragorn, Elrohir, and Gimli, if they all survived the night. 

"Should never have let the metal workers' guild convince me not to insist on stone for the substructure maintenance access." Thranduil muttered darkly, before motioning for the four younger elves and men to precede him down into the chamber. 

"Stone might have crumbled too. It's been centuries, after all." Theli remarked, extending a hand to Baeraeriel, who nimbly switched places with him on the far end of the opposite platform, so that Theli could offer a hand to Faramir. 

Thranduil scoffed, but didn't offer further commentary. 

Eowyn leaped gracefully down to stand by Faramir. Exhaustion must have taken a toll on her, either that or the moisture on the ladder made her slip a bit taking off. Faramir had to catch her. Which he managed handily, pulling her up against himself with a fierce embrace and a soft murmur which made Eowyn smile. 

Because he was watching his father's face, Legolas saw the flash of fear and the almost inaudible gasp when it looked as if Eowyn might fall into the rushing water and the emptiness below. He saw, too, that his father was preparing to let go, to fall with her, or catch her and cushion her fall. In a moment, the fear and the resolve were gone, and the King of the Greenwood was stoic again. A few moments later Legolas found himself standing on the platform right beside the falling water, clasped against his father's chest by Thranduil's strong arm. 

"The ladder is impassable." Said Baeraeriel, holding on to Theli's legs and peering below into the night.

The King sighed. "We'll wait the night out here, then." 

Thranduil did not sound enthused about that, and Legolas wasn't either. Neither were the barrow wights, who could not seem to get around the flowing water which took up almost the entire entrance above them. The wights shrieked and howled above, but did not come closer. 

"Next time," Thranduil ordered Legolas and Faramir, "Do try to find homicidal demon ghosts which can be killed, won't you?" 

"Maybe they can be killed, if they are drowned?" Faramir said, suddenly intrigued. "Perhaps we could try that?" He moved slightly aside so that the greater part of the narrow platform was Eowyn's, and then extended a hand toward the ladder as if he might try to climb back up. 

Legolas reached out to grab him. Faramir, once he'd had an idea, always bore watching. He usually studied the matter first, but if immediate action was called for, and he thought something could work, then the Steward of Gondor could behave quite precipitously. Legolas couldn't even entirely abhor that trait in Faramir - it had saved his own life, a time or three. 

"Cousin, get back." Theli ordered, motioning towards Legolas to yes, grab Faramir, if the human Prince got closer to the ladder. 

"I'm just going to take a closer look at the wights." Faramir objected, giving Legolas a hurt look as the elven Prince grabbed his belt. 

"You've seen enough of them already tonight. Get back on your ledge, Denethorchil..." Thranduil broke off, likely remembering that Faramir's father was a sensitive topic, Denethor having never respected his second son and later having tried to kill him, "Faramir." Thranduil ended, apparently deciding that calling Faramir by his patronymic, Thranduil's usual method of emphasizing that he thought someone was behaving like an idiot and ought to pay attention, might not be effective in this instance. 

Faramir, who did a pretty good job of pretending to be a heart-whole person who wasn't bothered by having had a father who'd been a few wagonloads short of sane, protested again, "It might even be that if we just firmly do not believe that they can hurt us, that they will not be able to." 

Legolas burst out laughing, but he didn't loosen his hold on his friend. "We can wake one up tomorrow night, Fara-nin, and you can test that theory. But for now, do as Adar says." 

"They weren't crossing the stream outside the main gate." Theli commented thoughtfully as Faramir reluctantly conceded, returning to Eowyn and wrapping his arms back around her. 

"We could send you and a few others just over tomorrow night the stream tomorrow night, and see what happens." Theli continued. 

"We'll see." Said Thranduil, his eyes glinting with interest even as his body language conveyed doubt. Legolas relaxed against his father, letting out a sigh as he finally allowed himself to feel how tired his muscles were. For a time, all was quiet. The sound of the water rushing past them was loud enough to drown out the quiet conversations between Theli and Baeraeriel, and Faramir and Eowyn. Faramir and Eowyn were smiling and almost laughing at times. The two of them had a very odd idea of what constituted a fun outing, but as traveling companions went, they were some of his favorites. Even on nights like tonight. 

"Why are there barrow-wights here?" Eowyn asked, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the water. "And why did they almost leave when Thranduil banished them, and then swarm back up?" 

Legolas could feel his father's growl vibrating against his back. 

"There were too many of them, I think." Faramir offered. 

"And also some structural damage to the lower levels." Theli added, "Including to some of the blessed springs." 

"There were very few human graves here." Baeraeriel's musical soprano rung out, "Did they IMPORT hundreds of dead human bodies and then corrupt them?" 

"Someone went to a great deal of trouble...." Faramir said. "I'm sorry." 

"Why, though?" Eowyn said, her pale cheeks flushed with anger on her elven cousins' behalf. 

"I've a theory." Theli put in, doing a bad job of suppressing a mischievous little smile. 

"Oh, by all means, Ecthelion." Thranduil said with tired patience, "We don't have anything else to do for the next few hours, so pray do entertain us." 

Theli grinned. "I think that Saruman convinced his dark master to corrupt and poison our home just to piss you off, Aran-nin." 

There was a moment of silence. 

"Ridiculous." Scoffed Thranduil. 

"No, really." 

"Ecthelion, do you have any idea how much time and effort that would have taken?" Thranduil pointed out derisively, "Digging up graves and transporting dead, cursing them, breaking the foundation of the mountain...." 

"I don't think you fully appreciate how annoying you can be." Theli responded in a serious, reasonable voice. 

Baeraeriel gasped at the irreverence and lese majeste of that rejoinder, but Legolas could tell that Thranduil was hiding a smile. 

"Well, why ever they did it, it must have taken up a fair number of resources that they could have been using for worse attacks." Said Faramir levelly, ever the diplomat. 

The last few hours of the night passed quickly. Which was odd, because the time should have felt interminable. There were few good things about perching on a narrow ledge, cold and wet and exhausted, with barrow-wights shrieking and howling of death above, and a very long drop onto sharp rocks just below. Yet, next to his father, it didn't seem so bad. They didn't talk very much, but that was fine. Legolas could still feel his father's mind, worried, yes, but most of all loving and proud and even a bit amused by the situation. Thranduil had commented, quietly, that he would be very annoyed later. Legolas didn't doubt that, but he was enjoying the reprieve while it lasted. 

At some point, Theli suggested that they switch around ledge partners. Legolas reproached himself for not having realized that his human friends would be incredibly tired. It was difficult and tense, keeping oneself and one's companion upright on the slippery, slightly down-ward sloping platforms. 

They were going to put Baeraeriel with Eowyn and Faramir with Theli, leaving Legolas with Thranduil, but that Baeraeriel had bruised her ribs during her jump across the chasm to join Faramir and Legolas. So they ended up with Baeraeriel and Legolas together, supporting one another, and Eowyn with Thranduil. 

Baereriel had been one of Legolas' training officers, and she was the older sister of one of his closest elven companions. She had some pithy words to say about how they'd ended up in this situation, but she was wiling to be distracted into reminiscences of times long gone-by. From what Legolas could hear of it, Thranduil and Eowyn were caught up in a very involved conversation about ideas for breeding horses for endurance and swiftness in a forest environment. His father, who seemed to find Faramir rather worrying and annoying for all that he was fond of him, had found his match in Faramir's fair young bride. Watching them meet the previous spring had been like watching an irresistible force meet an immovable object, and Legolas would treasure that memory for the rest of his life. Thranduil had become very fond of Eowyn, and it showed. 

Legolas was standing next to Baeraeriel when the sun finally slipped over the horizon, lighting the mist hanging over the trees. The cries of the wights became softer and then silenced. Legolas and his companions were just gathering up their strength to climb back up through the tunnels, when a voice called out from below. 

It was the Captain of Thranduil's guard, along with Captain Tundaer, and Sergeant Renham. And they had ropes and climbing equipment, so the broken stair didn't matter. It was a much quicker way to get out of the castle. Legolas was grateful. 

The rest of the day was exhausting. Legolas caught a brief nap with Faramir and Eowyn when Theli insisted, but otherwise he spent the time rigging up warnings of the barrow-wights and guard schedules. The elves who were staying would be moving a stream and redirecting a spring to surround the castle with running water from every approachable direction. Before they left, Thranduil wanted to review those plans, and he didn't want Legolas far from his sight. 

So it was not until night had fallen again that Legolas actually had a quiet moment to talk to his father. They were by the camp fire, with Faramir and Eowyn and several others nearby. If Legolas hadn't been so tired, he might have tried to move them to a more private venue. But no one was paying attention to them, and it was nice to see the stars and and hear the crackle of the fire. A very pleasant change from the previous evening. 

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said what I did to you, yesterday." Legolas started the conversation, figuring he'd begin with that because obviously going after the pen had been a bad idea, but Thranduil might not know that he regretted their argument, as well as what had followed afterwards. 

Thranduil just looked around the fire, not speaking yet. Eowyn was getting up to help Brasseniel and several other ladies with re-stitching borrowed finery for herself, Faramir, and Legolas, for the diplomatic trip to the East Bight. Faramir appeared to be asleep, leaning against Theli's side now that Eowyn was on her feet. Theli was looking up at the stars, apparently lost in thought and clearly not listening. 

The elven King cleared his throat. "I...I let my temper get away with me, too. Legolas, I..." 

"You are a good father." Said Legolas fiercely. He was sure of that, even though nothing he'd said the previous day had been a lie. He couldn't take that back. But, it was also true that, "Given all that you had to deal with, I cannot imagine any other elf doing half as well."

Thranduil still stared at the trees, but his hand reached out to rest on Legolas' back. "Thank you, my heart, but there was truth in what you said yesterday. I made mistakes. And I would never expect…You should never have had to be the adult, Legolas-nin. It should have been me taking care of you." 

"It wasn't…you did! You did in every important way." Legolas assured him. 

Thranduil sighed and turned towards his son, reaching out to gently grasp Legolas' shoulders. "Legolas. Stop. When you were an elfling, we were both doing what we had to, to survive. I was the father, and I failed you. Now, you are old enough to be honest and plain-speaking, with yourself and with me. Don’t lie about the past to protect either of us. Your perception of what happened while you were growing up is just as valid as mine. And any parent who can’t admit to making a mistake, even a grievous one, when confronted with their child’s pain, is a cursed fool." 

There was a quiet stirring from Faramir’s side of the fire. The Prince of Ithilien had apparently not been all the way asleep, and he did not always deal well with reminders of what his own father hadn't been. 

Thranduil winced. "Faramir, curse it, come back here." 

Theli got to his feet with a groan. "I’ve got him." He said, trotting off into the darkness after Faramir, muttering under his breath, "You just try to keep your foot out of your mouth for the next half-hour, Aran-nin." 

Legolas choked at the insolence of that. Theli was often cheeky, but that was rather beyond the pale. 

Thranduil narrowed his eyes. "I think that I might permit Celeborn to beat him, after all." 

"No, you won’t." Said Legolas with a soft smile. 

A corner of Thranduil's mouth twitched in an answering smile. "No, I wouldn’t. But I will send him back with you, to serve as Elladan’s assistant when he arrives to look after Rian for the birth of my foster-grandchild." 

"Poor Theli." 

"Save your sympathy, ion-nin." Said Thranduil, a complicated mix of ruefulness, affection, and reluctance in his voice, "We have yet to talk about your attempt at death by evil spirit." 

Legolas winced. "Oh yes, that."

"Yes, that." Thranduil replied, both reprimand and tease, and gestured the way towards his tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please do review if you are so inclined.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”  
> ― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

This was not how Legolas had hoped to spend his evening. Thranduil did not enjoy playing the disciplinarian. His lecture was caustic, and had Legolas blushing and mumbling before the end. As well as somehow now in charge of helping the merchants, alchemists, and tailors' different presentations and bids for the Woodmen merchants. 

"This was not a good way to make me want to come camping with you again, Legolas." Thranduil finished with a sigh. 

With a choked laugh, Legolas had to agree. " I will remember that, Ada." He promised. 

Thranduil's hand came up to gently stroke Legolas' white-gold braids. "Maybe we could try this again without so many evil spirits. Some, perhaps" Thranduil jested, "to add spice to the experience. But not so many." 

"I’d like that." Legolas agreed sleepily. "Maybe you would like to come to Ithilien. We have ghosts there, but not so many." 

"I’d like that." Thranduil paused, and then said uncertainly, "I can’t fix the past, ion-nin." 

"It's...it's not so much a fix…it was just a thing, you know." Legolas looked up to catch his father's eyes, "It caught me then, even though normally it bothers me not at all. Being here again, it's....it reminds me that I miss my sibs. Almost especially Lithidhren. He always made time for me." 

"And it was I who had forgotten that." Thranduil said regretfully, "Let me share with you my memories of Lithidhren… " 

It was one of the first times that Thranduil had spoken of Legolas' older siblings in depth since their death. Legolas listened intently, smiling as he remembered one thing or another, or realized things that he had never known. It was not until his father spoke of his heir Thandrin, and Thandrin's dedication to duty, that Legolas again felt the call of the lands oversea. That was where his siblings now were, if they had yet been reborn. And that was where Legolas could not go, not for hundreds of years, because Thandrin, Lithidhren, and Eryntheliel were all gone, and Legolas had to be his father's heir. 

Legolas must have tensed, because Thranduil stopped speaking and scrutinized him intensely. 

"Legolas...in order for me to be able to care for you, you need to tell me what is troubling you. I cannot read your mind reliably, nor would I violate your privacy to do so." 

"I..." Legolas began, and then stopped. "I think that I'm just tired." If he said anything at all, he would end up confessing about the sea-longing, and he did not want to put that burden on his father. 

"I may occasionally be oblivious, but I am not an idiot, elfling mine. Talk." Ordered Thranduil. 

"Fine, I'll....it's...." Legolas could not say it. He literally could not, the words got stuck in his throat. He couldn't disappoint his father, his family, his people, not like this. He couldn't fail them. It wasn't who he was, it wasn't who he wanted to be. He would just have to endure. 

Thranduil stood, and came to sit on Legolas cot, pulling his son half into his lap. With his elegant and calloused hands, the King brushed Legolas' hair and braids back behind his ears, then placed a finger under Legolas' chin to lift his face up. Thranduil's sapphire blue eyes stared into Legolas' green orbs, and saw the truths and the sorrows which Legolas could not bring himself to speak. 

"Ah." Said Thranduil, infinitely sad and tender, "Ai, elfling." He pulled Legolas into a loving embrace. That acceptance gave Legolas the peace to finally cry over this incipient loss, this betrayal of self. Legolas wept, comforted by his father's presence and reassuring woodsy smell. Legolas thought that his father might have shed tears, as well. It reminded Legolas of their early days back in the Northern Hall, only a few months after his mother and siblings had died. Those times when Legolas couldn't be strong anymore, or when something small had made him feel angry and despairing. Times when Thranduil had just held him, and let him cry and be sad. Legolas was surprised that he'd forgotten that, while remembering instead the pressure he'd felt to be happy, not to mourn. 

"All will be well, ion-laes-muin-nin." Thranduil swore, his arms sure and strong around Legolas. "I will make sure of it. I will send Lothgail in my place to the East Bight. You and I, and Theli, and a third of the guards, we will go to Mithlond." 

"To...to Mithlond?" Legolas gasped in confusion, "Why...." 

"'Tis best to sail as soon...." Thranduil paused, fear and determination evident in his proud features, "As soon as possible. I will not have you risk fading, not for anything. You will obey me, in this." 

"No." 

Thranduil gazed at him disbelievingly. 

Legolas couldn't help but laugh, wiping tears away as he did so. 

"The sea longing doesn't bother me, when I am in Ithlien, or Gondor. It is...there, but there like a cloud on the horizon. I know that it will bring rain when it comes, and the wind tells me when that will be. But I can enjoy the day until then, and I know...I know how long I have." 

"No one can know that, Legolas." Thranduil said gently. 

Legolas shook his head, "No, I do. I cannot explain exactly how, but I do. Not in years or days, but...it doesn't weaken me, as Lady Galadriel warned me that it would, if I fought it. I'm not fighting it, I'm just...putting it aside. And I can, in Gondor. They don't think in centuries, there, but just in seasons." 

Thranduil's eyes had narrowed at the mention of Galadriel, but he was listening. At the last, Thranduil nodded, as if understanding Legolas' reasoning even though he didn't like it. "But here," Thranduil said pensively, "where we plan to spend longer than you may have left just tearing a mountain apart in order to rebuild it...." 

Legolas nodded back. "Here, especially in the shadow of Emyn Duir, it hurts. I feel as if I am disappointing you, abandoning you. As if I am breaking faith with everything that Thandrin, Lithidhren, and Eryntheliel stood for, and died for. I...I cannot bear the thought of failing you, and all that your legacy has come to mean." 

"Oh, ion." Thranduil wrapped his arms around Legolas again, and held him tightly. "You are not failing me. Of course you are not. This is not something which you could not help." Thranduil moved back, and cupped Legolas' cheeks in his hands. "Listen to me, and listen well. You are a capable, dedicated warrior, but the war is over. This Wood no longer desperately needs your sword, nor even mine. You are not abandoning your post. I have lesser heirs aplenty, and," Thranduil smiled wryly, "every single one of them could make a better peace-time monarch than I." 

"Not true!" Legolas disagreed. And it wasn't. Well, it mostly wasn't. Thranduil was an expert military leader, but...well, Legolas had never known him as anything else. Thranduil and his family, staff and attendants had rather made an art out of making the government work around their King, with Thranduil serving admirably as a hard stop if anything truly needed to be dealt with by force. It was no secret that Thranduil's Chief Advisor and the forest elders and surviving lords and ladies and their staffs, did a lot more of the day-to-day work of running the kingdom, reserving only the most important decisions for the King unless Thranduil had specifically directed them otherwise, and even then offering their opinions and suggestions, which Thranduil rarely cared enough to second guess if they were not related to the military. So, starting from absolute scratch, perhaps many other elves could do better, at the non-military aspects of ruling the Wood. But Thranduil had held the position for over an Age, through the worst of circumstances. No one else had that authority. Not even Legolas, but if anything WERE to happen to Thranduil, he would at the least have the authority of being the great elven warrior's son. 

"Not more than you, now." Legolas amended. 

"No. Not better than me, now." Thranduil agreed, "I have earned that. But anyone who did not wish to follow, say, Lothgail or Silveril as Queen, could sail. I will begin having Lothgail assume more of the responsibilities that I had intended to pawn off on..... Well, more of my responsibilities." 

Legolas winced. It was not that Lothgail wouldn't be good at it, but Legolas knew that those duties were meant to have been his, and he still felt as if he was abandoning his father. He was also curious...."Not Lothgail's father, or mother, or uncle?" 

Thranduil shook his head. "I can better afford to lose an assistant treasurer than a chief treasurer or a general. Besides, they have indicated a desire to step aside in her favor." 

"You've already spoken of it?" Legolas wasn't sure whether to be glad or hurt. 

His father gave him a look. "Yes," Thranduil drawled, "When you were on the Quest." 

Legolas winced. His father still really did not approve of Legolas' decision to join the Quest, or of the idea of sending a hobbit to destroy the One Ring in general. A large part of that, Legolas knew, was because Thranduil had feared for the safety of his only living son. 

Thranduil, fortunately, did not seem to feel the need to go into all of that again. "It was a much harder question, then, Legolas." He continued more calmly, "The other circumstances were much the same, but Lothgail has no military background, nor does Silveril. My other heirs amongst the Elmoi are not of the Wood, and our older cousins are too accustomed to following my commands, too old and wise to have had any real hope of winning the war without me. You would have been the best to follow me, but after you...we were ready to write Glasseithel back into the succession, so that she could abdicate in favor of Baeraeriel." 

"Baeraeriel?" Legolas marveled. "Ada, she's...."

"She's too young, too rigid, and too hard. But she can hold, Legolas. And after the Battle of Five Armies, when she backed your bid to have support staff and forward-units in place long before I gave the order to join the battle...I knew that she could make up her own mind, and learn from past mistakes." Thranduill sighed, remembered worry and pain darkening his eyes, "If you had died on the Quest and I had died after, it would have been Baeraeriel or Ridhae to rule, of those with a military background who could be spared from the field. Baeraeriel is too hard, but Ridhae is too soft. In time, he would be better. He would be better, as a peace-time King. But if Glasseithel had not been disinherited by her parents for marrying without their leave, the better blood-right would be Baeraeriel's." 

"Cousin Glasseithel must have been furious." Baeraeriel and Televigil's mother had been heard to remark on more than one occasion that she'd rather sail with her children than have any of them become part of the succession again. 

"The thought of losing you had us all overset. She did not even object. Fortunately," Thranduil eyed his son again, "It did not come to that." 

"I'm sorry." Legolas said, laying back against his father's shoulder. 

"It is well, now. I decided to blame Mithrandir and Elrond, as you know. You were merely trying to help a friend." 

"And save the world. And if you had met Frodo, Ada, you would understand why...."

"Having heard of him in your words is enough, ion-nin. Peace. I understand." 

Thranduil even sounded like he meant it, which was good. Legolas didn't think that this father would be willing to let future opportunities to complain about the Quest pass him by, but at least Legolas now knew that he was forgiven. And more, that his father understood. That meant a lot. Legolas felt himself relaxing further, enough so to confess, "I do not know as I could have done better than Baeraeriel or Ridhae, truly, though I would have had the blood right and the status of being your son, besides...." Legolas came to a halt as his father flicked his ear. 

"You know I've little patience for self-denigration, Legolas." Thranduil said, not in the least apologetic. "You are young, yes, younger than all of your cousins, in fact. But you are not as hard as Baeraeriel, nor as soft as Ridhae. You are most often humble and wise enough to listen to advice, and yet sure enough of yourself to know when to disregard it." 

"Not always." Said Legolas, wincing as he remembered a couple of occasions when he would have done much better to have listened and kept himself from pulling rank. He winced again as he recalled a couple of times when he should have overruled even the well-reasoned objections of older but lower-ranking elves, and done what he'd known in his heart to be right. 

"Not always." Thranduil agreed, "But far more often than we had any right to hope for, in an elf of your age. I can recall but six times, outside of your largely-successful stints as regent, when you overcalled my officers. Twice you were right, twice you were wrong, and twice...well, if even I cannot be sure, then it was probably a good enough decision." 

"One of the times that I was right nearly didn't happen. Commander Eriston wasn't willing to pass on my order. If he hadn't overindulged in drink and passed command to his second, then I wouldn't have been able to get a message through to the General to move patrols back in the direction of the Enchanted Stream."

"Mmm." Thranduil said neutrally. After a moment, he added, "Theli drugged Commander Eriston's wine, with the complicity of his sergeant. The second-in-command was unaware. As, I suspected, were you." 

"I...did not realize that." Legolas really hadn't. Theli had done the same to him, once, when Legolas had just about decided to break orders and go back for a comrade they'd seen take a half-dozen arrows before being overwhelmed by orcs. Legolas had promised not to do that again, and Theli had promised not to drug him again. 

"Commander Eriston was warned that he had miss-stepped, and that repeated mistakes of the like would result in his demotion or reassignment to somewhere of lesser strategic importance. Your reputation amongst the military elves was enhanced by the whole episode. And I made it clear that it was my will that your will be followed, when you asserted yourself as Crown Prince rather than junior officer." 

Thranduil did not seem to expect nor want to be thanked for that. Legolas was still surprised that he'd been unaware of all of those things happening around him. At about the same time, Theli had been demoted, ostensibly for falling asleep at watch. 

"He was demoted for assaulting a superior officer." Thranduil explained, guessing correctly what Legolas was thinking, "And yes, drugging someone is an assault. We kept it quiet. He should have been dishonorably discharged and arrested, or at the least suspended for a century. But given why he acted as he did, and that I knew you valued his continued support, I did not let that happen." 

"Thank you." Legolas did have to say, at that. It was another time that Theli had protected Legolas' reputation and career at the expense of his own, and Thranduil knew that, too. 

His father nodded, then after a moment, said very seriously, "Legolas, just so that this is clear...this...this making the necessary arrangements for you to sail, it is not a demotion, for you. It is preparing to leave a post in the fullness of time, to take up....another one, in the West. I am going to have to start preparing someone else to take my place if the need arises, but really, I should have been doing that already, anyway." 

Legolas stifled a snort. 

Thranduil glared at him, mock-offended. 

"A couple of cousins and an advisor or two might have mentioned that." Legolas said, half-amused and half-apologetic.

"Interfering busybodies." Thranduil muttered, "But nevertheless, you have done well, as my heir. Your mother and your brothers and your sister would be proud. Thalion is proud." 

"He's mentioned so, several times, since last year." 

"Good. He'd told me before, but apparently never you, and you were the one who needed to hear it, most. We've all forgotten at times, how young you are, and usually to your detriment." 

"It is past." Said Legolas, even though that still bothered him, at times. 

"Mmm." Said Thranduil, considering him. "As someone who has succeeded admirably as my heir, I am very interested in your opinion, as to who should take your place and how they should be trained. I am thinking Lothgail, but I will not mention it to her, for the nonce. I will be interested in your opinion, as to how she handles herself with the Woodmen." 

Legolas frowned. "I thought that I might not have to go with you to the East Bight, now that you know I might not even be here when it comes time to deal with the Woodmen again." 

Thranduil laughed, full and long and bright. Then he slapped Legolas gently on the back. "Think again, ion-nin. I am NOT leaving you here, not after you came here without word, started exploring on your own, and went running into a combat situation like a chicken with your head cut off." 

"It was worth a try." Legolas said, with only a hint of a sulk. 

Thranduil laughed again, laying them both down and securing Legolas comfortably against him. "Sleep now. Time enough to complain about going to see the Gorand in the morning, and on the way there." Thranduil glowered, "Belain knows I will be." 

Legolas laughed, because he was sure that would be true. He was relieved to have confessed to his father about the sea-longing, relieved to have found nothing but support. But he was also...sad. Sad that he would have to leave. 

"Ada, will you sing, for me? One of the forest rondels that Lithidhren would sing?"

"Will I...." Thranduil began, as if he couldn't quite believe the request. Then he sighed, and ran a gentle hand through Legolas' hair. "Yes, ion-nin, I will sing Lithidhren's songs, for you." 

And he did.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”   
> ― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

The next morning dawned chill and cloudy. Legolas awoke late, still warm and wrapped in blankets, lying on his stomach on his father's cot. Thranduil himself was gone, and most of the tent was packed up around Legolas. He hastened to repair his clothing, so that he didn't slow the process down any further. 

The campfire was roaring. Strong tea and spiced cider were being passed around, as well as porridge, chopped fruit and vegetables, grilled fish, and roasted quail. Legolas ate what was handed to him still standing, wondering whom to thank for letting him sleep in, until he was distracted by a worried Eowyn. 

"Smaug is never one to pass up quail or fish. Should we search for her?" 

"Give her some time." Thranduil counseled, with a fond nod of welcome in Legolas' direction. "She has enough sense to return before we get too far ahead. The horses are not even watered, yet." 

Faramir, likewise standing, expressed his agreement with Thranduil, then offered Thranduil and Legolas the sword he'd borrowed last night, the one which had belonged to Lithidhren. 

"Keep it." Thranduil said gruffly. "Unless Legolas has an objection." 

Legolas shook his head mutely, a bit overwhelmed. 

Faramir's normal tact deserted him, and he stuttered "I...cannot. It is too fine a blade, and your son's...." 

"Keep it." Thranduil said again, voice hard. "And Legolas, you keep Thandrin's sword. You should have something besides your knives, should you want a longer blade, and he would want that." 

Baeraeriel, beside Thranduil, nodded firmly. 

Legolas, sensing the direction this was going in, nodded his agreement, then went back into the tent to retrieve Eryntheliel's bow, and the arrows they'd collected from the ruins. 

"Eowyn, here." He offered, "You have no primary bow of your own, and my sister's will fit you." 

Having had a happier childhood than Faramir, and being innately gracious about these things besides, Eowyn did not demur. She did sincerely thank Legolas, and take the bow with gentle, firm hands, treating it as both a precious heirloom and an exquisite and deadly weapon. Eowyn, Legolas thought to himself, would probably wield the bow even better than Eryn had. Eowyn was a warrior to her soul, as Faramir was not, and as Eryntheliel and Lithidhren had not been. Legolas felt disloyal for thinking so, but....he could tell by looking at his father's face that the same thought had occurred to Thranduil. 

Faramir and Eowyn exchanged a telling glance. 

"Thank you." Said Eowyn again, "We will return them to you, or have our children's children do so, 'ere you sail." 

"Perhaps." Said Thranduil tightly. "But the offer is appreciated." 

"Aran-nin, Ernil-nin," Theli interrupted. Legolas noted with some interest that he was also standing, as well as being several shades more polite and formal than was his normal wont, "I beg your leave to return to Ithilien-en-Edhil. I want to be there for Lady Rian, in case the babe comes early, and to monitor her health." 

Thranduil frowned. "I should be there for the birth of my first grandchild." Thranduil was not distinguishing between his foster-son and his remaining blood son, and Legolas didn't mind. He'd never minded that. 

"You should finish up with the Woodmen in plenty of time." Theli pointed out. 

"True. Go ahead, Theli. Take Orthadvren and at least one other with you." Thranduil decided. 

Hiding a grin, Faramir asked Theli, "So, this has absolutely nothing to do with not wanting to see Lord Celeborn again?" 

"I really am needed in Ithilien -en-edhil." Answered Theli, without actually answering the question. 

Legolas was amused to see his father trying very hard to hide being intrigued by that exchange. After a moment or so, Thranduil seemed to give that up as a bad job. "What in the name of Orome did you do, to make you avoid Celeborn like the plague?" He inquired of Theli. 

"You really don't want to know." Theli answered, again without really answering. 

"I don't want to know, or you don't want me to know?" Thranduil asked wryly. 

"A bit of both, really," Said Theli with a cheeky grin, "but haven't you enough on your plate?" 

"True, but," Thranduil fixed Theli with a firm look, "If whatever-this-is comes back to trouble me, I am going to trouble you." 

"Yes, Aran-nin." Theli agreed meekly. 

The last of the clean-up and packing was interrupted by the return of Smaug-the-cat. She entered in grand fashion, her head held high and her tail up proudly. In her mouth she carried Lithidhren's prized metal quill, which she presented to Eowyn with a flourish. 

Eowyn handed it to Legolas, who knelt to give Smaug a caress and the last of his quail. Smaug acknowledged this tribute as her due. Curling her tail around herself, she gave the quail and Faramir's abandoned porridge her full attention, purring loudly. 

"You could have saved us all a great deal of trouble by finding this last night instead of gorging yourself on boar." Thranduil criticized the tabby, who ignored him as only a cat could. 

Soon enough, Smaug was in the special pouch attached to Eowyn's saddle, and their party was ready to depart. Thranduil had fortunately brought extra horses. Eowyn was to ride one of Brasseniel's remounts, Legolas had one of Thranduil's, and Faramir one of the horses belonging to Thranduil's guards. 

"Feeling better?" Faramir asked. 

"Yes." Answered Legolas with a smile. "You?" He asked his friend. 

"The same."

Eowyn circled them, seeming already at one with her prancing mount. Blond braid flying in the wind, she gave them a challenging grin. "I’ll race you to the end of the cleared road. The honor of your gender is at stake, gentleman." 

Legolas and Faramir both grinned in reply, glad to be free and looking forward to racing the wind through the trees. Thranduil chuckled and said something about younglings, but Legolas thought the King might just be jealous that he felt too proper this morning to be racing with them. 

"How can you be married to that woman, gwador nin? The headstart she's taking is a cheat!." Legolas complained. 

"Do not deride the strength of men, oh delicate elf." Faramir laughingly teased, before taking off after his slender wife. 

For a moment, Legolas just sat with his mouth agape while his irritating father laughed harder. Then he urged his mount forward at best speed, calling out, "Delicate! I’ll show you delicate, you upstart brat of a princeling!" 

They did not make good time the first day. The sun never came out, and very few parts of the road were clear enough to move faster than a careful trot. Thranduil pushed them through lunch and dinner with only quick breaks, despite seeming a bit stiff himself after their exertions of the past few days. 

During one of those breaks, Legolas noted Thranduil and Faramir speaking, intense and low. 

Later on, Thranduil caught Legolas' attention, and then nodded towards Faramir, who was listening to Eowyn speak animatedly about how some of the same planting techniques that Thranduil's elves were using to cleanse their land could be modified to work in Ithilien, and writing down some of it without ever once glancing away from Eowyn's face. Eowyn's hand stroked her mare's neck while Smaug leaned against her shoulder. The owl which had followed Eowyn from the house of the Beornings perched above them, watching the proceedings with interest. 

 

"It surprised me that you remember so little of your brothers and sister," Thranduil said quietly, "Because you have done a fairly good job of surrounding yourself with tolerable human parallels for them." 

Legolas' breath caught as he looked again at Faramir and Eowyn. In his mind's eye, he saw Eryntheliel and Lithidhren long ago, at a picnic quite near this very spot. Eryntheliel had been surrounded by a flock of birds, rather than just one owl, and Lithidhren had been sketching the birds and transcribing what Eryntheliel told him about the different species for a book he had been helping her to write, one put aside after they both died. 

"I...I hadn't even realized." Legolas murmured.

"Faramir is more sensible and easier to speak with than Lithidhren," Thranduil said, "And Eowyn is harder than was our Eryn. Your friends are older, relatively speaking, and have lived different lives. But yes, at the core of them, the spirit....there are some similarities. And almost more so, between your Aragorn and Thandrin." 

Legolas thought that his father was probably right about that, and was going to say so, when a question occurred to him. "I remember that you and Lithidhren used to argue. You said last night that it was because you were so different, and because you both liked to push one another to do things that did not come naturally to you. Is that why you like to make Faramir uncomfortable?" Legolas knew that Faramir could sometimes be annoying, the way he subtly pushed people to do what he thought would be for the best, but Thranduil seemed to get true joy out of catching Faramir off-balance. 

Thranduil didn't deny it. In fact, he even grinned for a moment. Then he gave Faramir a thoughtful look, and said musingly, "Perhaps. Your Faramir is normally so self-assured, a manipulator of what reality he wants there to be. Not in a deceptive way, but very...persuasively so. Yes, it does amuse me to leave him unsettled. Less so now that he is with Eowyn- he is less occupied with trying to control responses and expectations when they are together." 

Legolas nodded. "I can see that." 

Thranduil was silent for a moment. Then he drew in a breath as if he was about to speak, then let it back out. Legolas looked at him worriedly. Thranduil was almost never at a loss for words. He often stayed silent, but it was not because he wasn't sure whether he should speak or not, or what he should say. A lack of surety was something that Legolas' father rarely experienced, and even more rarely showed or admitted to. 

"Legolas," Thranduil said at last, and still only loudly enough for the two of them to hear, "about Faramir..." 

"He is as dear to me as a brother, Ada. He and Aragorn both." 

"I have no quarrel with that, ion, but I want you to listen to what I tell you now, and keep it in your mind." 

Thranduil waited for Legolas' nod before continuing, "Yes, your Faramir is a good friend, a brave and kind and honorable man. However, when you adventure with him, remember that you must make sure to pass on to Aragorn, or to whomever the relevant authority is, the full details of whatever events have transpired." 

Legolas frowned, "Faramir knows how to give a report, Ada." He said reproachfully. 

"Oh?" Asked Thranduil archly, "And what report did he give, of being kidnapped by a slaver with his brother and the sons of two of his father's political enemies, then talking the slavers into releasing them. After which they were attacked by orcs and wargs, and rescued an injured elf?" 

"Ada. He was nine years old." Legolas said exasperatedly, "The authority he would have been reporting to was Lord Denethor, who would have been....." Legolas struggled for the words to convey how bad of an idea informing Lord Denethor of those incidences would have been. 

"Yes, I do know that Faramir learned not to trust authority figures at an early age, Legolas, and for good reason. But what I want you to understand, is that such an instinctive reaction - to make your own way rather than seeking counsel when you are lost or overwhelmed - is a difficult thing to unlearn." 

Legolas shook his head, not understanding why his father didn't understand. "Faramir does trust Aragorn, Adar. He never trusted Denethor. That is the difference." Legolas explained. 

Thranduil sighed. After a moment of silence, he spoke again, his words softer and slower, and even more pensive, "You know Faramir, but I knew his ancestor Imrzaor, and his other kin the Kings and princes of Arnor and Gondor. Having known them, I can tell you that your young sworn-brother keeps a lifetime of secrets, many of which are not his own to tell. He will tell your King the things that he thinks that your King needs to know, whether they reflect poorly on him or not, whether he has an answer to the problem or not. He trusts Aragorn that far, yes. But he has held his own command, and kept his own counsel, in a situation where there was no one above him whom he could fully trust. That is his default mindset; any other response will take time and experience for him to learn." 

When his father took the time to speak this seriously about something, Legolas always listened. He thought to himself that Faramir had trusted Boromir and imrahil, yes, but he had not trusted Boromir's judgment; and he had not trusted Imrahil not to let on what he knew to Denethor, if Faramir were to tell Imrahil more than he should know.

Appearing relieved that Legolas was listening, Thranduil continued, "There are matters and details with respect to which I believe your Faramir would keep silent, Legolas, when it would be better for Aragorn to know the whole picture. Be aware, of that. And, if it is appropriate, I expect you to speak for him, even if it displeases him. 

"I will." Legolas already had, at least once, but he didn't want to say so. And he'd already been warned of the same, in regards to Faramr, both before and after that incident. 

Thranduil considered Legolas. "Someone else has also told you this. Aragorn?"

"No. He does not fully understand it, I think. Why Faramir would feel that way. I don't, either. But no, it's not the first time I've been warned of it." Legolas answered, amused. 

"Do I even want to know?" Thranduil asked wryly. A pained expression crossed the King's face. "Please do not tell me it was the Lady Galadriel." More hopefully, he inquired, "Perhaps Elrond, or even Celeborn?" 

"It was my friend Gimli." Legolas answered, not sure whether to feel amused, because this would not please his father, or a little sorry for Thranduil, and a little sad for himself that his father was not pleased with a friend he had come to hold so dear.

"The dwarf." Said Thranduil, clearly unimpressed. 

"Yes. Gimli is like a brother to me, as well, you know." 

"It is, of course, your choice upon whom to bestow your affections." Thranduil said levelly. After a moment, he added, as if it was difficult to say, "I am sure that he is an honorable being." 

"He is. If he weren't a dwarf, and he weren't quite so blunt, I think that you might even like him." 

"He is as welcome in our home as any of your friends, ion-nin." Legolas' father assured him, although Legolas noted that Thranduil didn't look like he was sorry that he thought Gimli would be too busy in Aglarond to visit very often. Legolas tried not to mind. Thranduil actually seemed less opposed to dwarves than Lord Celeborn, and a number of older elves, so Legolas decided that he should just count his blessings on that score and not think about it anymore. It wasn't as if Gimli would be going to treat with the Woodmen. There would be dwarven traders there, like enough, but not the new Lord of Aglarond.


	7. Chapter 7

They continued to make slow progress through the thick and sullen foliage on their way towards the East Bight to treat with the Woodmen. Thranduil was determined that they should take a straight path through the forest from the old Forest Road to the East Bight. After a day of fighting angered undergrowth, a number of still-hostile creatures, and a few lingering spiders and orcs, there was some discontent about that. Legolas, however, still rather liked his father's plan. He felt that going through the forest was for the best, to clear a way and reclaim the forest as they went. 

Lady Lothgail, Thranduil's chosen deputy for this upcoming treaty negotiation, was amongst those who disagreed. Lothgail wished for them to arrive in good time, and fighting their way through the forest was not the best way to achieve that goal. 

They camped that night in the lee of an old oak, but a stone's throw from the edge of the forest. The trees were closer to healing, here, and the light from the stars clearly visible. Lothgail, Brasseniel, Angolbrennil, Lord Medlion, Lady Haldis, Captain Tavordir, and several others practiced the dialect of Westron spoken by the Woodsmen. Faramir and Eowyn listened with interest, frequently managing a passable accent. 

Thranduil practiced pretending to understand the language of the Woodsmen only well enough to follow the gist of a conversation and know when he was being insulted, so that he could reasonably rely on the efforts of an interpreter. Faramir teased the great Eleven King over this, ever so carefully. It was quite a funny moment for Legolas to watch, and he was pleased to have the opportunity to do so. 

This was the most time that Thranduil and Faramir had spent with one another. Faramir, it seemed had concerns over Aragorn. 

"The burdens which rest upon him are many. I would like to know what I can do, to keep the duties of being a King from overwhelming Aragorn my friend." Faramir explained. 

Thranduil did not say much in response to that, but Legolas could tell that he approved of Faramir's attitude. After a time the King spoke to that concern, and then to his own fears for Aragorn's future son. 

"Aragorn's heir will need you greatly - none of you have any idea how hard it is, to be the Crown Prince and Heir apparent." The great elven King explained. 

Faramir coughed quietly, inclining his head in Legolas' direction. 

"I am right here, Ada." Legolas complained, in mixed exasperation and fondness. 

Thranduil laughed quietly, putting an arm over Legolas' shoulders and drawing his son close to him. 

"So you are, ion-nin. I do not mean to belittle your experiences, truly, however..." 

"I had twenty years of a relatively normal elflinghood, 'ere I was your first heir." Legolas agreed. 

"Aye," Said Thranduil, "and it was a time of war, again, by then. The vast majority of the most noisome meddlers and gossips had their own concerns, or they had sailed. There was less of the...constant watching, to see when I would make a mistake, and the elaborate, planned protests and power plays, when I did." 

Legolas nodded thoughtfully. "There was little of that. There was pressure to be...you, or as much you as I could, which was far too high a goal, but if you had died, I would have been expected to be a figurehead. It would have been expected, for a fair time, that one of the older cousins would have guided me." 

"A figurehead with the ultimate decision-making authority, Legolas." Lady Lothgail reminded her younger cousin, "And when you served as regent, you did so well." 

Legolas smiled his thanks, before noting, "I was not alone, though." He could quite well remember Lothgail and her parents and grandmother sitting up and drinking a whole pot of tea and helping him, as he went through an endless stack of petitions from his father's different officers. 

"I was not alone, either, when I became King." Said Thranduil, "But I was alone, growing up, in what I had to be. And in peace time, before we had the forest to reconquer, that was harder. It's annoying, again, now, but...perhaps I am just tired of war." Thranduil concluded. 

Lothgail smiled at her cousin the King, then remarked, "It is less annoying, now, I think, cousin Thrani. Many of the elves of whom Ada and Nana once complained about the most have sailed. That may have helped. Those of us who are left..." 

'Twas Faramir, who continued, "We're the survivors, all of us." 

Lothgail saw that they all had wine in their flasks, and then she proposed a toast, "To the Greenwood and Gondor- the two fire-breaches of Middle Earth. Eru and Mandos and Namo bless and care for those we have lost." 

"Aye," Said Faramir fervently, "And help us to make the most of our peace." 

Eowyn wrapped a hand around her husband's. "There is that one good thing, about war." She said, in her chill soprano, "Most of us had no time to be enemies, to make too much trouble. We had enough of it with the real enemies." 

"Well, yes," Faramir agreed dryly, "With the possible exception of Gondor's council." 

"It is the nature of Councils to be troublesome." Thranduil noted wisely, "It is why I only let mine meet once or twice a year, at odd times." 

Faramir laughed. "How does that work?

Legolas and most of the others hid their smiles, or in some cases, their frustration. 

"Not well, truly," Confessed Lothgail, "But everyone who is important and helpful comes over for dinner once a week. We thrash things out then." 

"Well, any system that functions, I suppose." Faramir approved. 

The conversation moved on, but as the fire died, Faramir's concerns seemed to turn again to the burden his future Prince would bear. 

"Cousin," He asked Thranduil, "What can I do, to help this be easier for the child of my friends - our new prince or princess?" 

"Be a friend." Thranduil answered frankly, after thinking the matter over for a few minutes."Don't hold him -or her - to an impossible standard." 

Legolas thought of his father's relative patience, if whatever mistake or misfeasance Legolas had committed hadn't been something actually hurtful or physically dangerous. Even the time when Legolas' tutors and other caregivers had been furious and disappointed with their prince for systematically pretending that his lessons were harder for him than than they were, from the the time he was twenty-one until the time he was forty-five - so that he could spend more time on his weapons lessons - Thranduil had handled the whole matter with relative equanimity. Even on the occasions when Legolas scared him and Thranduil's quick temper ignited and flared, he was usually able to forgive quickly. Oh, he would still remind Legolas of whatever he'd done- such as going on the Quest - but more in a manner that was sardonically affectionate and don't -ever-do-that-again then truly indicative of lingering anger. Not that it was fun to be reminded of your foibles again and again, but, well....the pressure Thranduil spoke of, Legolas had not really felt. 

Thranduil was still talking when Legolas finished his mental detour. 

"Have children, when you and your Lady are ready. Playmates for your new prince, other younglings who share some of the same responsibilities, if not all." 

That hadn't been what Faramir and Eowyn wanted to hear, Legolas thought. Faramir gave no impression of it, for his face normally told listeners only what he wanted it to. Eowyn sighed. 

"I do beg your pardon, Eowyn." Thranduil soothed, "My wife and I waited well over two thousand years, between Thalion and Thandrin. I would be the last criticize. It is a personal matter." 

Legolas' cousin Televegil, proving yet again that he could be blunt and insensitive beyond words, said, "And at least this way no one will think that you're trying to marry your offspring to the Heir to the Throne. People always said that, about Brasseniel's older sister Sedilien and Thandrin, and about Baeraeriel and Thandrin, and about Lithidhren and Cellillien, and Lithidhren and ...." 

"Daro, Celuvorchil!" Thranduil snapped, at the same time that Baeraeriel glared her brother into silence. 

This time Faramir's eyes widened and he turned a peculiar shade of green, and it was Eowyn who remained calm. It was an overreaction from Faramir, and Legolas wondered at it. 

The next day, Faramir pulled him aside, and asked Legolas to promise to stop that happening, should Faramir and Eowyn both die before any children of their union became old enough to marry. 

"I will not, even if I have not yet sailed." Legolas reprimanded, feeling great relief at being able to admit that possibility to himself, at the same time that he was slightly appalled with his dear friend. "What is wrong with Aragorn and Arwen? Surely not that Arwen is part-elven!" 

"It is not Arwen." Faramir said, holding secrets in his eyes. "It is...just, trust me when I tell you that it must not happen. Please." 

Legolas trusted Faramir with his life, with Aragorn's life, or Gimli's. Even with his father's life, but he could not understand this. 

Faramir, who saw so much, must have seen that as well, for he spoke again. "Legolas, have you seen the only son and heir of the Lord of Lossarnach?" 

"The poor child." Said Legolas, remembering how he struggled to speak, and to walk. Now beginning to understand his friend's fear, Legolas pointed out, "But, Faramir, you and Aragorn are only distantly cousins." 

"And Eowyn. And many times over, at that. Eowyn and I are both descendants of Elros, and then of Imrazor and Mithrellas. Most directly, Eowyn and I are third cousins, both great-great-grandchildren of Prince Aglahad of Dol Amroth. Aragorn is a descendant of Elros, and of Imrazor and Mithrellas, through Princess Firiel, who was herself the granddaughter of a Prince of Dol Amroth, on her mother's side. And Aragorn is a many-times great-nephew of Imrazor, through his grandmother Ivorwen." 

"Many of the great families of Gondor, and of my people, are just as closely interrelated!" Legolas protested. 

"You begin to see the problem, then." 

Legolas sighed. "You are being....." He was about to say ridiculous, but then he cut himself off. Faramir was Finduilas' son, and she had had a great-aunt who had been so lost to the visions as to spend most of her life in tortured confusion. That form of mental instability ran in the same blood lines as prophets and seers. And Aragorn's grandmother was the most famed seeress of the Northern Dunedain, of not just her own generation but also of many generations previous. Faramir couldn't see the future, but he caught glimpses, from time to time. 

"You are afraid." Legolas concluded. 

Faramir nodded, relieved to be understood. "My great-aunt Anelis did not life a happy life. If Lady Galadriel had not been able to help my mother when my mother was still a child, my mother might have been lost to her visions, as well." 

"Very well, Faramir, I will keep an eye on them, if I am still here, but..." Legolas shrugged, a habit he had picked up from his human friends and one which older elves, even his father, absolutely despised, "I may have sailed." 

Faramir smiled at him, clearly relieved, and apparently for more than one reason. "So you have told your father of that." 

Legolas narrowed his eyes. "And not a week too soon, it seems...." 

"Aragorn was worried." 

"And yet he chose you to tell my father if I did not? And here I thought that Aragorn loved you...." Legolas said, putting an arm around Faramir's shoulders and drawing him back to the fire. Legolas was glad that he did not have to worry about these things that humans did, and even more so when Eowyn caught his eyes and thanked him with a silent nod. That she worried about this as well bothered Legolas. But there was nothing he could do about it, and it was far in the future, so he put it out of his mind. Only a few years later, Legolas would want to shake Faramir, and kick himself, for not having realized by that fear that Faramir already then knew himself for the King's son.


	8. Chapter 8

The following day saw their party stopped for hours, in order to clear out old nests of giant spiders. Thranduil finally relented on the issue of their route, and so they moved from the forest to the now well-worn path encircling it. 

"Traders, moving again." Thranduil commented, seeming torn between approval and a dislike of so many people. 

"They will move much more swiftly once there are roads through your wood." Eowyn noted, stroking the soft neck of her horse. 

"And we can charge tolls." Said Lothgail's favorite scribe, Barant, with eager anticipation. 

"No tolls." Said Thranduil disgustedly, at the same time as Lothgail, although she seemed slightly wistful. She was the daughter of the Wood's chief treasurer, and undoubtedly could have thought of a half dozen hundred ways to which such funds could be well-put.

"Tolls can be counterproductive, to a trade route which is only just being reestablished." Faramir counseled calmly. 

That evening saw them meeting with Lord Celeborn and his escort, fresh from a visit to Imladris to admire the elven Lord's new grandchildren. 

"Adoptive grandchildren." Pointed out Aran Thranduil, even though he would have been quite put out had anyone said that Thalion's future child would only be his foster-granddaughter. 

"Mine, by law, and by bonds of the heart." Countered Lord Celeborn gently. "And despite not being ours by blood, they somehow resemble my Lady." 

"That is not so surprising, Cousin." Said Eowyn, "Your son Orophin has something of her manner, and Lady Elain is luminously light-haired." 

Celeborn favored her with a smile. Legolas hid a smile of his own, at the expression on his father's face at contemplating two small Galadriels. Legolas had only met Lady Galadriel a handful of times prior to the Quest, but his father had found something objectionable about the great lady at every meeting. It had not seemed to bother Galadriel in the slightest, which had only vexed Thranduil further. 

The conversation between Celeborn and Thranduil turned to matters which had occurred hundreds of years before Legolas' birth. The two great warriors and leaders of elves shared the same plate at dinner, and Thranduil deigned to lean against Celeborn's shoulder as their fire burned low that night, actually listening to Celeborn's advice about how to manage his kingdom's upcoming road-building project. Legolas marveled that Lord Celeborn seemed to know exactly how to word his explanations and suggestions, so as not to put his father's nose out of joint. 

It was a shock to realize how close his father was to this elf Legolas had only met twice before, that he could remember. The first time in Lothlorien during the Quest, just after Mithrandir's first death. Celeborn had been very kind to Legolas then, treating him almost like a long-lost grandchild. Given how bereft Legolas had felt, that unexpected affection and regard had been most welcome. Unfortunately, Lord Celeborn had been very distrustful of Gimli, which had been less helpful, to the extent that Legolas had begun to avoid his company by the end of their sojourn in the Golden Wood. 

Legolas had met Celeborn again at Aragorn and Arwen's wedding. Someone had clearly had a long talk about the sterling merits of dwarves with the Lord of Lothlorien, for his eyes were were at least neutral, even reservedly respectful, rather than cold when he greeted Gimli after the war. Legolas wondered if it had been his wife, who favored Gimli with more dances at the wedding feast than anyone but her own family. Or perhaps it had been enough that Gimli's hands were amongst those holding Rumil's brains in his head, after the youngest of Lord Celeborn's son had taken an enemy axe to the head at the siege of Helmsdeep. 

Now that Legolas thought of it, he'd heard tales of Celeborn from his father, and his cousins, and his father's friends and their older children. Stories about how he and Thranduil had been very close, once. Of how Celeborn had been like another father to Thranduil, and to Legolas' grandfather Oropher. He dimly remembered even older stories, of how Celeborn and Celepharn, Legolas' great-grandfather, Oropher's father, had been the best of friends as well as cousins. 

But none of that had prepared Legolas for having his father treat this familiar stranger as if he was a member of their inner circle, close family who could be trusted with the full story of what had just nearly happened at Emyn Duir. For Thranduil then to bear Celeborn's scolding with any grace at all was practically too much to believe. Then they began once again to talk with passion and depth about elves who had died, or sailed, or become old and boring, before Legolas was even born. 

"It must be very challenging, at times, to be an elf of your generation." Faramir commented, too quietly for anyone but Legolas and Eowyn beside him to hear. "Almost like coming into a conversation that has been going on for centuries, where there is no way to know where all the currents lie." 

Legolas was so surprised that he almost choked on a laugh, because that was indeed very much how it was. 

"It is rather the same with us." Eowyn confessed, with a small amused smile that Legolas had only seen once before the end of the war, and was pleased that he now saw with increasing frequency, "When we are with Aragorn and Arwen, and you and their brothers." Eowyn finished. 

"Not always, though." Faramir spoke up, evidently trying to change subject, "Sometimes it is...."

"Gimli and Faramir bet on how many years ago different events might have happened." Eowyn shared, fair bubbling with mirth, "When the five of you get started reminiscing." 

Legolas snorted with laughter at his heart-brother's chagrined expression. 

"Do you, then?" He teased, "Who is winning?" 

"Gimli." Confessed Faramir, his slate grey eyes starting to warm as he saw the humor in the situation, "But only by a gold coin. From having been on the Quest with you, he had enough context to realize that Aragorn was actually present for Glorfindel befriending a marmoset which then stole his favorite whetstone. I was winning by half a coin purse, before that." 

"I remember that journey." Legolas mused, "Lord Glorfindel was furious. He was certain that it was me or Aragorn or Elladan, having him on." 

"Don't tell Aragorn." Asked Faramir, changing the subject again. 

"I won't." Said Legolas, with a wolfish grin, before qualifying "Provided that you cut me in, of course." 

Faramir muttered about that being tantamount to robbery on the high seas, and Eowyn laughed at the both of them. 

The topic of conversation the next night was how best to work on healing the southern part of the Greenwood, while keeping the Woodmen and the Beornings and the returning and growing human populations appraised and involved. 

"Or at least non-confrontational." Said Lothgail, with resigned honesty. Thranduil appeared to approve of her cynicism. Legolas had noticed that Thranduil had been letting Lothgail take the lead, in many of these discussions. And when she asked the King questions, where he once would have given an answer, he now turned the question back around, and asked Lothgail what she would do. Lothgail was handling herself fairly well, Legolas thought. She had a good handle on just about everything that wasn't military related, and she was willing to defer to the officers on those matters. 

Legolas observed Celeborn noticing Thranduil's pushing Lothgail to the forefront. Celeborn didn't say anything, but he did look at Legolas, his gaze sad and knowing and proud, all at the once. Legolas flushed when he realized that Celeborn must know of the sea-longing, from Galadriel or from Elrond, or most alarming yet, even perhaps from Thranduil. What Lord Celeborn might think of Thranduil's choice of Lothgail to stand in for him as heir to Greenwood, Legolas did not know. Legolas did know that some would not like the decision, because although Lothgail was descended in part from Sindar of rank on both sides of her family, one of Lothgail's other grandfathers was Sindarin but a commoner, and one of her great-grandmothers was a Noldo. Legolas did not think that would bother Lord Celeborn - he had, after all, married a Noldo, and his own adopted sons were commoner wood-elves of no known blood-line whatsoever. 

Those same reasons which would make Lothgail a difficult heir for some few of the remaining Sindar to accept likely made her only a more agreeable choice to Thanduil, who liked to stir things up from time to time. But the King was letting Lothgail stand on her own, for now. 

"We once had a very good relationship with the humans who lived in the lands to the south and east." Said Lady Haldis, with only a small amount of reproof in her voice. Lady Haldis and Lord Medlion were Thranduil's (or more properly his Aunt's) choice of elven ambassadors to East Lorien and the East Bight, meant to begin the healing of the Forest there. The couple were, in the main, an easy going pair whom Legolas didn't even remember much from the North Hall, growing up. But they did seem to have a bit of a chip on their shoulder, about an elleth who had been born in the Third Age, even as early in the Third Age as Lothgail, opining about anything. Thranduil watched them narrowly, and Legolas thought to himself that he was glad, in some ways, to have escaped being his father's next-heir during this time of peace. Haldis and Medlion treated Legolas as if he were a talented but mischievous school boy, merely tut-tutting him over nearly getting a third of a company killed at Emyn Duir. 

"Times have changed." Lord Celeborn remarked mildly, "And the memories of men can be even shorter than their years. It is a situation which we must approach delicately." 

"True enough." Lord Medlion conceded, "I wish that your father or mother were here, Lothgail. They have a way about these things." 

At the moment, Lothgail looked as if she wished her parents were here, too. 

"'Tis actually a pity that we couldn't keep Theli Lord Balrog-Chaser about." Put in Captain Tavordir, who was to accompany Lord Medlion and Lady Haldis, and whom Legolas remembered hearing had once had Theli in his unit for the better part of a century. 

"I would agree." Said Celeborn, to Legolas' surprise. "Your young Lord Ecthelion has quite a way about him, with humans. He was crucial to convincing the sixteenth Gorand to add the potato clause, and that was well before you ennobled him, Thranduil. He would have been an asset." 

The conversation moved on, and gradually Lord Medlion and Lady Haldis, and Captain Tavondir and sub-officers, departed the fire so that only Thranduil and his family, and Eowyn and Faramir and Celeborn, remained. Celeborn took the opportunity to make a request of Legolas' father. 

"Do bring Lord Ecthelion with you Thranduil, the next time that we meet. I have something I would like to speak to him about. Strangely, we have not been in the same time at the same place since the need for this conversation first arose some decades ago." 

"I need Theli for Legolas. In Gondor." Denied Thranduil, remarkably blank-faced. 

"Your youngest son does not seem the type of young elf to need a healer in constant attendance." Replied Celeborn, who appeared clearly dubious of that claim. Legolas probably hadn't helped by looking surprised at the idea himself, or so he gathered from Faramir's tapping the ground with a hand. It was one of the signals he used in council, to remind Aragorn to keep his calm so as not to queer a political gambit prematurely. 

"Oh, you would be surprised, Cousin Cel." Thranduil replied, giving his son a wry, fond look, but still clearly not engaging on the issue of forcing one of his retainers to be in a foreign leader's presence if he did not want to, even if said foreign leader was also a beloved member of Thranduil's family. 

"Your Adar reminds me of Aragorn, in that." Said Faramir, when he and Eowyn and Legolas spoke of it later that evening. "Aragorn would protect me - or any of us- from even my brother-by-law Eomer-King, scold us as much as Aragorn might himself in private." 

"Sometimes especially from Eomer." Added Eowyn, who still got into occasional arguments with her dearly beloved brother. "Up to a certain point, of course." 

"You are much the same, meleth." Said Faramir fondly, "Defending Legolas and Thalion from their Adar until he went scarlet then icy with rage." 

"Then laughed like I've rarely ever before heard him laugh, for the joy of having some slip of a human girl stand up to him." Remembered Legolas fondly, of Thranduil's first meeting with Eowyn. 

"I wasn't trying to enrage him, or amuse him." Eowyn protested, blushing. "I was just tired of having him criticize you and Thalion. It's not easy, building a settlement out of almost nothing." 

"Criticizing is one of the ways Ada shows affection." Legolas explained again, his eyes twinkling. "It was still quite something." 

The next night, the last before they arrived at the East Bight, Thranduil again spent most of the twilight hours in conversation with Lord Celeborn, about elves whom Legolas knew very little about, or at least, nothing this exciting. 

"It is extremely odd to me that Thalion is married now, and will father a child come next spring. Let alone Haldir and Orophin already having elflings of their own." Said Thranduil. 

Celeborn chuckled. "It is not so odd, to me. That is the way of things, you elflings grow up and have children of your own. I remember the first time I felt that way....Celebrian was quite young, perhaps only twenty and two." Celeborn glanced over to the listening Faramir and Eowyn. "That would be about nine years of age, for a human child." He explained. "She had run off, in a temper with Galadriel and I for planning to leave Khazad-dum to found Eregion. She had made friends amongst the dwarflings, and did not want to leave them." 

"I recall hearing something of that." Said Thranduil, though his brow had wrinkled at the thought that Celebrian, of whom Legolas knew his father had once been quite fond, living with and befriending dwarven children. "Wasn't that the day that Celebrian first met Erestor?" 

"Yes, indeed. Good memory, Thranduil-nin." Praised Celeborn, with a father's affectionate smile for Legolas' own father. "Celebrian brought Erestor home with her. His parents, Arandil and Elain, had only just arrived, to serve as Ereinion's ambassadors in Eregion. I remember first seeing Arandil again..." Celeborn shook his head, "He was so young, when first I met him. A squire of King Turgon's, at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. I was wounded, just coming from the healer's tent, and he was....well, he was..." Celeborn considered his audience again, and then continued, "He was vomiting, overwhelmed by the horror of the day. Glorfindel picked him up, put his sword back in his hand, and made him go stand watch." 

That sounded fairly horrible to Legolas. He knew that neither Faramir nor Eowyn would approve, although Faramir at least appeared unsurprised. 

"Typical Glorfindel." Derided Thranduil, with a snort."If it can't be killed or beaten, then make it go stand watch." 

"Or dig privy trenches." Countered Celeborn, with a wry smile. Legolas got the distinct impression that his amusement was at Thranduil's expense. 

Faramir spoke then, sparing Legolas' father any further embarrassment. "That is how Lord Glorfindel shows affection and respect, is it not? By showing someone that he still trusts them to do the job he selected them for?" 

"It is." Agreed Celeborn, his amused look now moving to Faramir and becoming more thoughtful, "And Arandil, being his only son, and then called Glorendil, did know that. Especially since he had not been selected by Glorfindel, who would have preferred he stay in Gondolin, but rather by Turgon, who thought that he deserved the chance to test his vocation. Though if Turgon had known...if any of us had known....how that day would go...." 

"It is good that power is gone, and its servant, too." Concluded Faramir gravely. 

"Aye, young one." Agreed Celeborn, "And young was Arandil, when he first became a father. Less than four hundred, practically an elfling having his own elfling." 

"Although had he not raised Lord Elrond and Lord Elros, by then, or had a hand in it?" Asked Faramir, going again toe to toe with the elder elves. 

"Undoubtedly what he would have said," Conceded Celeborn, again amused, "Had I had the ill grace to tell him I thought him far too much a youth himself to have a child of his own. Alas, I managed to hold my tongue, and he and Elain helped to raise my child, as well as their own." 

Thranduil looked as if there were a multitude of things he wanted to say, but he managed to settle for, "I can remember when Thalion was still a child, and you were..." 

"Unfairly critical, perhaps. You handled fatherhood and kingship descending upon you at the once far better than I had expected." Celeborn said, apologetic and sympathetic and proud all at the once. 

Thranduil raised an elegant hand, palm-up, in the elven equivalent of a shrug. As if it didn't matter to him that Celeborn had said so, even though Legolas was fairly certain that it did. 

"You helped to raise my sons, when they were in your Kingdom, as well." Celeborn added. 

Thranduil narrowed his eyes. "Theli did not do as badly as you would imply." 

"Peace, Thranduil. I did not mean that." 

"Well, good." 

Faramir, who had a pathological need to defuse tension, asked, "Were Lords Haldir, Orophin, and Rumil in the Greenwood, when they put honey in Lord Arnuzir's bed roll?" 

Thranduil stared at Faramir, while Legolas stifled a laugh. Eowyn looked amused and interested, and rather to Legolas' surprise, so did Lord Celeborn. 

"I don't think I ever heard about that, so probably, yes." Celeborn concluded, looking to Thranduil for confirmation. 

"Yes, it was in the Greenwood." The King said, still giving Faramir an irritated look. "It was, apparently, your human long-father Valandil's idea. He was staying with my wife and I in the Greenwood, for part of that summer." 

"King Valandil of Arnor was my lord Aragorn's long-father, not mine." Faramir corrected gently, as Eowyn took his hand, "I am descended from the House of Hurin, not from the line of the Kings of Arnor." 

"You all look alike." Snapped Thranduil, who had in fact called Faramir by the name of "Aragorn" on several different occasions, since first meeting him. 

"In any case," continued Thranduil, continuing to eye Faramir as if to preempt further interruptions, "Valandil convinced Rumil it would be amusing to cause that pompous ass Lord Arnuzir to have a physically uncomfortable, and sartorially embarrassing, experience." 

"Just Rumil, then?" Celeborn said, more amused than upset by his son's youthful antics. 

"Oh, no, they pulled my Thalion into it." Thranduil gave his elder cousin an irritated look, as if Rumil's getting Thalion into trouble had been partially Celeborn's fault, "Orphin insisted that he had been involved as well," Thranduil then continued, "Although I'm fairly sure that he'd gotten his vengeance by baiting Lord Arnuzir into saying ridiculous things over the evening fire." 

"That does sound like my Orophin." Celeborn agreed, with a tender smile. "Well, it was almost an age ago, and it sounds like you and Theli handled the matter. And it is certainly not as if they were the first young elves I have ever known to think it was funny to drizzle honey on an honored ally in the night...." 

"A bear did that." Thranduil disagreed, almost hiding a blush. 

"Yes, in your Wood, cousin, where most of the bears are on speaking terms with you and your offspring." Commented Celeborn wryly. 

"Saruman deserved much worse." Said Thranduil, his humor and his blush disappearing, and his voice turning cold. 

"He did, at that." Celeborn agreed. Legolas rather got the feeling that if Saruman had been before them now, Celeborn would have struck him down so that Thranduil didn't have to. 

A moment of silence reigned over the fire, with Legolas and everyone else lost in their own dark thoughts. Legolas realized that he did not want these words to be the last that were spoken that night, or the image of Saruman the one he carried into his dreams. Yet he couldn't think of anything to say. 

Faramir evidently could, and asked, "I'd noticed that Thalion, Orophin, and Rumil share a strong friendship. Did they spend much time as playmates, growing up?" 

"A fair amount." Conceded Thanduil, seeming grateful for the change of topic, "Thalion was not the only war orphan in the Greenwood, but there were not in truth that many. Celeborn's adopted elflings came every year to visit Theli, and sometimes later just to visit Thalion, when Theli was off on patrol. Thalion was only a decade older than Rumil, and that time means little, after only a few years." 

"Thalion bridged the gap in age between Orophin and Rumil, and helped them develop a strong friendship outside of Orophin's one-time role as elfling minder." Added Celeborn, "I was very grateful for that, then, and continue to be. Haldir was older, and occupied with his military training, which left Orophin lonely, at times." 

"And Haldir was also old and stodgy before his time." Said Thranduil, which led to another polite not-quite-an-argument between Celeborn and Thranduil, but it seemed to be an old and familiar one, and was a much better note upon which to end the evening than talk of Saruman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear from you if you are enjoying the story, thank you so much for reading either way!

**Author's Note:**

> Please do review if you are so inclined. Thank you for reading, either way!


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